The New Paper Column: Food

I don’t know how any Singaporean could really be homesick in New York City. In the past few months, I’ve discovered not only Singaporean Fried Rice, but also Singapore Mai Fun (mee-fun, or vermicelli), Singaporean Noodles, and, my personal favourite, Singaporean Cookies.

(The search for Singaporean Steak, Singaporean Hot Dog, and Singaporean Salad is still ongoing. Stay tuned!)

There is, of course, nothing even vaguely Singaporean about these ‘Singaporean’ dishes.

But that problem hasn’t stopped enterprising five-dollar restaurants from exploiting our name, betting on the fact that most broke American college students still think of Singapore as some exotic locale. Sadly, for the most part, these restaurateurs have gotten it right.

Whether served in an American-run Japanese sushi-bar, or in a Taiwanese-run Chinese takeout place, I’ve seen (and complained about) countless fellow students literally swallowing the whole “Singaporean Experience” hook, line, and sinker.

Of course, the co-opting of foreign cuisines to local tastes is nothing new. Singaporean fish and chips differs from Australian fish and chips differs from British fish and chips according to local preferences.

So I really shouldn’t be surprised that in Manhattan Chinese food is not so much Chinese food as it is what Americans think Chinese food should be.

But where, then, does localization end and bastardization begin?

If Singaporean Chicken Rice is simply white rice fried with soy sauce, should it still be called Singaporean Chicken Rice, or should it be renamed American Singaporean Chicken Rice, or American Chicken Rice, or something else altogether?

This question, of course, is compounded by an additional problem: Does Singaporean Chicken Rice actually exist? If it does, why should we believe what we have is Chicken Rice in all its definitive Singaporean-ness? And if it doesn’t, how are we to agree on what would actually make our Chicken Rice Singaporean?

And even if we ever did settle on one definitive version of any Singaporean dish, we’d have to figure out one more thing: Do we insist on the purity of Singaporean flavour, and attempt to sue, torch, behead, kidnap, or otherwise eliminate all other rivals who claim to speak for us?

Or do we stand idly by and wait for non-Singaporeans to invent satirical Singaporean Burgers, Singaporean Falafels and Singaporean Pasta, which we will only know about too late when we see them in international supermarkets?

It would be so easy to think that Singapore’s culinary fate rests between these two extremes, but add in Singaporeans who struggle to explain to others why Singapore has no distinctive cuisine, Singaporeans who themselves laugh about Singapore’s melting pot of all foreign foods, and more, and the issue becomes a lot more complicated.

If somebody starts selling Singaporean Cheesecake one day, I don’t think I could arbitrate between the person selling it, and the person picketing outside, because there is no right or wrong here, only different priorities, and to ‘settle’ the question with platitudes about the freedom of selling cheesecake or “rights coming with responsibilities” (as one letter in a local paper read recently) is simplistic and naïve.

But I will say that if the day comes when even cheesecake is a hot-button issue, I hope that by that time we will have learned the value of dialogue, and not have to resort to either jerry cans of kerosene, or spiteful rhetoric in national papers.