Belonging

I come to Singapore as a visitor. Not a tourist, because that connotes coming here for aimless pleasure alone, to set foot into the city while barely scratching past its veneer of bayfront views, glass skyscrapers, white-tiled malls, and then to leave, without ever being made to belong. Instead, I come for a long stay, to adopt the day-to-day life of locals as best I can during the day, while taking online classes with professors from abroad at night. In this way, I am a visitor, perhaps no more grounded than any other tourist in the eyes of decades-old residents, yet one who feels more anchored among the city’s two-story rows of post-colonial plastered storefronts, its painted lanes of cracked pavement, its bouts of rowdy hawker center banter.

In tasting Singapore’s food and winding through its sun-beaten streets for nearly a semester, it is as if I were slowly but surely being knit into the fabric of the city, as if I were being made and molded to belong.

Singapore is a melting pot. Melting, because that’s how I feel as I trek through its tropical year-round humidity, the sun in my eyes and sweat down my back. A pot, because that’s how I imagine all the city’s flavors fitting together. Not to sit and stew and meld into a homogenous mass, each ingredient stripped of its history and culture like anonymous goop doled from a can — the kind of meal I put in my mouth and then chase down with water — no, but rather ingredients made to complement each other in taste and texture, the way any good soup is supposed to.

The island’s population includes a diverse range of ethnicities, and the city reflects that. Chinese, Malay, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Peranakan… I see it in public transport signs labelled in English, Mandarin, Malay, and Hindi as I rush to catch an incoming subway train. I hear it on the tongues of shopkeepers as they take customer orders in Teochew, Hakka, or Hokkien dialects, the sound of their consonants harsh and ringing, yet not unfamiliar to my Mandarin-attuned ears. Best of all, I smell and taste it at the array of hawker centers, bustling open-air markets housing food stalls and former street vendors, which pepper the city. They sit on raised concrete platforms, barren in that they only offer long plastic tables and stools for seating, and oftentimes raucous, in that the conversations of diners, the clatter of utensils, the roaring of stovetops, and whirring of ceiling fans all pitch into one cacophonous mass beneath its metal roofs. It is a comforting sound in many ways: it tells me that I’m in the right place, that I’m eating how the locals eat (as any seasoned tourist should do), that I’m savoring the amalgamation of more than five decades worth of cultural exchange and culinary evolution.

In short, it tells me I’m being served the right soup.

Urban legend says the city was built from bowls of bak kuh teh, literally “meat bone tea” or pork bone broth. 19th century and early 20th century Chinese immigrant workers, known as coolies, had carried it across the sea from their homes in Fujian province, had eaten it as a way to sustain themselves off the measly wages earned from long days of grueling labor. They worked in almost every sector — construction, shipping, tin mining, agriculture, rickshaw pulling — bootstrapping Singapore from the ground up. Many never escaped the poverty that they had sailed away from their homelands for, even as the city rose high on the very foundations they had helped build. They worked themselves to the bone, weaving their way through opium dens and gambling during off hours as a reprieve from their misery. They settled in Singapore, though the fortune they dreamt of had long since been replaced by the grim conditions of unskilled indentured servitude. They had bak kuh teh to savor the taste of meat, even when they couldn’t afford to eat it.

Now, bak kuh teh is eaten for its flavor and for the sake of tradition, a culturally ubiquitous poor man’s food remade to cater to modern tastes. Short ribs simmered until the meat is peel-off-the-bone tender are doled out with the soup, as are a range of side dishes: braised paper thin soybean skins, savory stewed peanuts, braised offal. Foods no wage laborer back would have eaten. I take a sip my bowl’s proffered plastic spoon, savoring the burn of spices across my tongue and the heat of the soup down my throat. While bak kuh teh can come in three varieties — one stewed with medicinal herbs and aromatics, one that’s pale toned and relatively light in flavor, and one richly spiced and dyed in soy sauce — it is the latter which Singaporeans most favor. It is the bite of star anise, cinnamon, fennel seeds, cloves, coriander, not to mention copious amounts of white pepper, that the locals can’t seem to get enough of. I take a sip of tea, though that too is hot. If the climate isn’t enough to make me sweat, then bak kuh teh will.

In my bowl, floating alongside finger length cuts of pork ribs are whole cloves of garlic, simmered until its insides of have been leached of their alliaceous taste, more resembling a creamy pulp than any acrid aromatic. I gingerly pick out the clove with my chopsticks and set it between my front teeth, as I’ve seen the middle-aged locals do, squeezing out the insides from beneath its papery skin and eating the garlic whole. A mild paste coats my tongue, contrasting the gulps of pepper I have been feeding to my lips.

I eat with my mom, who is bent over a bowl of mee sua, wheat noodles thin enough to snap with a press of the tongue. They swim in the same broth as in my own bowl, tan toned and flavorful from a loving mix of pork bones and spices and time. Between us sits a bowl of deep fried dough fritters, you tiao, their cylindrical lengths chopped short to reveal cross sections of hollow air pockets. I scatter a few onto my bak kuh teh, watch as they float across the soup’s surface like inflated rubber rings in a pool. My spoon dips in, scoops out, and I take a bite, the crispness of you tiao pairing well with the broth’s peppery spice.

I wave a hand at a passing server, point a finger at my half-empty bowl. She nods, circles around to our table with a large metal tea pot in her hands. Out of the spout comes pork bone broth, its surface still curling with steam as the liquid is poured into my bowl. I thank her, go back to my soup, and polish off the last of my pork, savoring what a Chinese coolie would have longed to afford.

Given the port city’s perpetual summer, one might think that locals have cultivated a fondness for blander foods, cooler foods, flavors that are lighter on the palette, dishes that are best served chilled. Experience tells me the opposite holds true. Every time I see a vender scoop chili paste onto a dish with one final flourish, an artist completing their masterpiece with a finishing touch, before handing me my food, every time I taste that whisper, that hint, that outrageous burn of spice across my tongue (it’s a game I play, I never know which one of the three it might be), I am reminded that I thought wrong. Singaporeans love their chili, and if it makes them sweat, makes them hiss and chug iced sugarcane juice out of flimsy plastic cups, all the better. There is nothing chili cannot be served with. It sits in bowls of Teochew fish ball noodles as flakes of red, is dolloped as a thick paste on the side of plates of Fujian stir-fried shrimp noodles, accompanies pale tender cuts of Hainanese chicken as an orange sauce of minced red pepper and garlic. When I ask for braised duck, their soy sauce stained necks long and twisted as they dangle from metal hooks behind greased glass, when vendors dice up crisp skinned pork belly or slice vermillion hued char siu pork at my request, their worn metal cleavers thudding across wood cutting boards in a blur, it is taken for granted that I have asked for chili on the side, too.

Perhaps no dish showcases the locals’ love for chili better than the aptly named chili crab. The dish is exactly what it sounds like it is. Crab, chopped shell-on mud crabs deep-fried in oil, tossed in a sweet, savory, and slightly acidic chili and tomato based gravy. A dish that requires plastic gloves, washing bowls, wet towels, nutcrackers, and even paper bibs to fully indulge in. It stains the corners of mouths, makes eyes water, makes my nose run. And when all the meat has shelled, when all that’s left of the crab is a hill of cracked orange carapace licked clean, the remaining chili gravy is eaten with deep fried mantou, soft white Chinese buns that soak up its flavors like a sponge. While a point of national pride, this dish is less seen in hawker markets as it is found in sit-down restaurants lining the cobblestoned banks of Singapore River, or on the laminated menus of food court eateries and up-scale establishments. It is pricier, with each serving being charged by every hundred grams of crab, and requires a crowd, a round-table family style gathering, to share. A far cry from the type of feast that a ten Sing bill could easily offer at any hawker market.

I peel off my plastic gloves, their fingers now coated in a sheen of orange, and toss them onto my plate beside piled shards of orange shell. In the restaurant’s bathroom, I scrub my hands with soap, certain that the scent of crab and chili had somehow sunk into my skin, despite the plastic. On the bus ride home, it starts to pour, a thunderous watering-can-automated-lawn-sprinkler kind of rain that pelts on umbrellas, asphalt, unfortunate passersby. The bus stops at a station and a wrinkled lady steps in, one hand wrapped around the handle of her dripping blue umbrella, the other around a plastic bag cradling takeout. It smells good — not chili, not crab, I note — though I had already stuffed myself stupid. It would be a mistake, perhaps, to equate what the locals are said to love, what the tourists flock towards, with what the locals actually eat.

I’ve never been much of a milk drinker, the pallid liquid looking more at home, more appetizing, in creamy melt-on-the-tongue cheeses, in thick yogurts and frozen scoops on waffle cones, than alone in any glass. I like to think that Singaporeans feel the same, albeit with a different type of milk — coconut milk, the thick opaque almost cream-like byproduct extracted from a mix of grated coconut pulp and coconut water. By all accounts, coconut milk was never made for drinking to begin with. To drink the viscous milk-white liquid straight out of the can, the way some might gulp milk straight out of the carton, would be like drinking full fat cream. You don’t. Rather, you cook with it, the way the locals in South East Asia have done for generations.

You wouldn’t be able to tell walking down the rows of vendors in hawker markets, however. There is no sign posted that writes-up the ingredients nor the appearance of a dish. You are expected to know, as any seasoned Singaporean should, and even if you don’t, a quick taste should be able to tell you. It is highlighted in bowls of curry laksa, another dish whose flavor profile comes courtesy of ethnic migration and cross-cultural mixing. Supposedly originating from the Peranakan communities of Chinese men who’d migrated to Southeast Asia in as early as the 15th century and intermarried with local women, the dish, like its namesake, consists of wheat noodles or rice vermicelli served in a fragrant curry soup, the coconut milk adding a touch of richness while balancing out the zest of ground turmeric, coriander, lemongrass, shallots, pepper… more spices than I can name, or taste. While curry laksa does have a non-coconut milk and curry based counterpart — asam laksa, one that highlights the acidic tang and spice of tamarind fruit in its broth — it is not as beloved of a dish in the city. Here, it is the gravy-like consistency of orange-yellow curry laksa soup that most often finds its way ladled out of tall beaten up stew pots, over beds of round egg noodles topped with hard-boiled egg, deep-fried tofu, crisp bean sprouts, and into locals’ mouths.

But enough about curry laksa. There are countless other foods where coconut milk can be found. I set down my spoon, leave it half-floating in the shallow remains of soup filmed in chili oil, take a sip out of the cup of sour plum juice by my side, and move on. Above me, electric ceiling fans whir in tandem with the flapping of pigeon wings. The birds cluster over abandoned leftovers neglected on the tables for too long, pluck at without a hint of fear. I look at them, distracted, swear they are just like the squirrels at Penn in their arrogance. Though I would bet that the rats on wings here in Singapore are better fed.

Next up, rendang, a Malaysian dish of beef braised low and slow in spices and coconut milk until the liquid has evaporated into a dry curry. It might not be sightly — a vendor wearing a black hijab doles out lumps of caramelized deep brown into the city’s preferred take-out vehicle for just about anything, a plastic bag that’s looped through at the top with stiff cord, before knotting the bag in one smooth motion and handing it to me with a crinkle of her eyes — but I know. The beef is fork-tender, having been cooked long enough to go from simmering in coconut milk to frying in coconut oil as the water evaporates and only fat is left behind. I take the bag, hand her a folded bill and a few coins, my mind already reminiscing the taste of ground galangal, ginger, turmeric leaves, lemongrass as I wind away from the stall. She calls after me, tells me I’ve forgotten my change. I laugh at myself, turn back, and thank her again as I accept a scattering of coins into a cupped palm.

Last, nasi lemak. There’s a line at the stall, housewives and helpers and cragged grandpas in their plastic slides standing in a row. I step up as the line progresses, raise two fingers at the vendor — meal set number 2 — who gives me a curt nod before taking the next person’s order. Behind a glass partition lined by metal trays of stir fried string beans and diced tofu, fried egg, eggplant, steamed fish wrapped in packets of bamboo leaf, a man packs rice into a large cone of stiff wax paper. He tosses in sliced cucumber, fried chicken, a scoop of crunchy deep fried anchovies mixed in with salted peanuts, and a scoop of sambal, a Malay chili paste known for its sweetness and tang. But the key isn’t the condiments, it is the rice. Usually Thai jasmine rice, each grain pale and thin, cooked in coconut milk and flavored with a knot of pandan leaves, thin stalks of green whose vanilla-like fragrance has made it a ubiquitous addition to Southeast Asian cooking both savory and sweet. He wraps up the cone with a practiced familiarity, secures it with a rubber band, and hands the packet to me. Behind him, a large open tub of nasi lemak, fittingly name in Malay as “rice in cream,” steams into the open air. It’s aroma is subtle, but it’s there. It tickles my nose, sweet-smelling from fresh-cooked grain and pandan, yet also savory from a loving steep in coconut milk.

I take one step to the side, then stop, an apologetic smile on my face. The vendor stares at me, only half-amused. I’d almost forgotten to pay.

Singapore has much to offer by way of taste, far more than I can capture through words, on paper, in such limited space. Too much. For a city whose population is stitched together from such a wide range of ethnicities, there is only so much I can do to bring its culinary landscape to life.

But I try. I tell you of ondeh ondeh, sweet rice balls flavored with pandan, stuffed with gula melaka, or molten palm sugar, and rolled in grated coconut. I tell you of pandan chiffon cakes, each taller than the height of your palm, yet easily quashable into a tenth of its width. They’re more air than cake, they’re naturally green from pandan extract, and yes, I can inhale half a round at a time. I tell you about flakey salted white bean pastries, thumbnail sized shortbread pineapple cakes. Salted egg yolk soft-shell crabs, fish skin chips deep fried until crunchy and coated in salted egg yolk. I go on about the glossy texture of kaya, or coconut jam, a mix of cooked egg yolks, coconut milk, and sugar so rich and saccharine sweet that it only requires a thin scraping when spread across white toast and sandwiched with wads of solid butter. Kaya toast, the classic breakfast food is called. It is served in hawker centers and stand-alone kopitiams, or traditional coffee shops, cut into halves and eaten with runny eggs cracked into a bowl on the side. And where there’s kaya toast, there’s usually coffee, or “kopi” as the Singaporeans call it, made from a bitter and concentrated brew boiled in large metal canisters.

Kopi-C Kosong is how I like to have mine. C, for Carnation, the brand having become a stand-in for all evaporated milk. Kosong, for no sugar. On ice, too, to combat the tropical heat seeping into my bones. The vendor nods at my order, his hands already busy picking up a new plastic cup, shoveling in ice cubes, before setting it on the counter. He turns to the side, pouring kopi into a small metal cup, the dark liquid steaming as it flows out the battered canister’s spout. Evaporated milk is streamed in straight from the can and stirred vigorously, until the kopi has adopted a creamy tan color. It goes over ice, the cubes melting on contact with the near-boiling liquid. I hand him just the right amount of change, and he hands me my drink, the large plastic cup now fitted into a plastic sleeve so it can be slung from the fingers of one hand. A plastic straw is slid into the sleeve. I thank him, and he says he’ll see me around, as shopkeepers in Singapore do.

I nod at him as I leave, though I won’t be around. I had come as a visitor, and I will leave as one. I haven’t tasted everything, haven’t had enough of this city, and unless I live here, I likely never will. But what I have tasted, what I’ve been able to experience of Singapore’s ethnicities, its soup of cross-cultural evolution — I will write about them, my memories to keep them alive and my words to be my witness. Perhaps, it is only because I know I will not be around for long, that I treasure the flavors of this city as much as I do. In savoring Singapore’s food and wandering through its tropical neighborhoods for nearly a semester, I have found a second place to call home, to belong.

I type out my last line, down the last of my kopi. It is bitter, only slightly less so with the addition of melted ice and evaporated milk, but in my mind, it is, was, sweet.

References

Lim, D. (n.d.-a). Bak kut teh | Infopedia. Singapore Infopedia. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1800_2011-03-18.html

Lim, D. (n.d.-b). Chilli crab | Infopedia. Singapore Infopedia. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1112_2011-06-17.html

Tan, B. (n.d.-a). Nasi lemak | Infopedia. Singapore Infopedia. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1739_2010-12-13.html?s=pandan

Tan, B. (n.d.-b). Rendang | Infopedia. Singapore Infopedia. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1767_2011-02-11.html

Thulaja, N. R. (n.d.). Chinese coolies | Infopedia. Singapore Infopedia. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_87_2004-12-15.html