Count the Memories, Not the Calories: Remembering Those Who Cook
How do we remember those who feed us? Librarian Kevin Seet delves into the visual documentation of Singapore’s hawkers and finds out how it enriches our understanding of this vital part of our shared history.
As a librarian, I am interested in archiving and preserving histories and memories for future generations and researchers. There’s not much that would get Singaporeans more excited than food. Through the library’s collections and archives, I will explore how food has been sold to the public, reflecting how our food culture has changed over time.
Taking the mid-19th century as our entry point, we discover that while there must be some established manner of selling food to the population in Singapore, images of street hawkers were not commonplace. This could be because photography was still a novelty then and hence not easily accessible.
Some businesses such as G.R. Lambert’s did produce photos of everyday life, but only to sell them on as photograph cards for tourists. Judging from the plain backgrounds though, I won’t be surprised if these might have been staged in Lambert’s studio or something similar.
Street hawkers were also depicted in postcards to capture what life was like in the growing Singapore town. Postcards were easily reproducible and could be artificially coloured, appealing to tourists as keepsakes while also bringing these street scenes to life.
In the early 1900s, as photography advanced, newspapers began publishing the first street photos of food hawkers, though still in black and white. Newspapers from this time were interested in images that depicted street scenes and occupations, with little to no focus on the social or cultural aspects of street hawking. I also found it interesting that more wheeled carts were used, perhaps reflecting the improved woodworking skills available at the time.
This began to change during the post-war period as artists started to use street food hawkers as subjects in their work, documenting these occupations and lifestyles in a broader socio-cultural setting. These paintings added more life, in contrast with the sterile nature of black-and-white photographs (and possibly preserved better too). The focus shifted from merely depicting the hawkers’ work to highlighting how their presence fit into the social fabric of the era.
Artists are often attuned to societal changes. In the 1960s, the government initiated efforts to license food hawkers and relocate them to hawker shelters (the predecessor of hawker centres) due to problems with hygiene, crime and public nuisances. Police raids took place regularly and illegal hawkers faced confiscations or fines. At the same time, artworks portraying the struggles of the street hawker began to emerge. By the mid-1980s, all street hawkers had been evicted, raising concerns that this intangible piece of history would be lost. Illustrator Chang Yang (张洋) created a series of 128 drawings and texts depicting street hawkers from the 1920s and 30s. This series, titled Our Vanishing Street Hawkers (消失了的过街小贩), was published almost daily in Lianhe Wanbao from October 1987 to May 1988.
As food hawkers moved into hawker centres, hawker culture evolved into hawker centre culture. These hawker centres quickly spread across Singapore, becoming gathering spots for people from all walks of life. Ubiquitous and affordable, they offer a variety of dishes from different cultures and served as communal spaces where Singapore’s multicultural society could come together and share meals. For these reasons (stated in Singapore’s nomination to UNESCO), hawker centres were inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020. Interestingly, perhaps for the sake of brevity, only 10 photographs were included in the nomination to represent hawker centre culture.
With improvements to Singapore’s transport system, it became much easier to travel around the country. As a result, “foodies” emerged, sharing their favourite food stalls and seeking out their preferred hawker’s take on local dishes such as Hokkien mee, rojak, and so on. Documentation of these hawkers began, driven not by a desire to preserve memories but by a simple pursuit of good food. Food reviewers found a passion for reviewing and recording notable food businesses. Some went further, engaging these business owners to record their histories, including those who had started as street hawkers decades ago. These recorded histories are invaluable, especially when food businesses often come and go, and many older generations of cooks and owners struggle to find successors for their businesses.
Let’s not forget that hawkers are not our only purveyors of food. Today, society has evolved and the food ecosystem extends beyond physical eateries. It now includes cloud kitchens, home-based businesses, private dining experiences, tingkat (food delivery) services and more.
In the age of social media, food experiences are increasingly documented through digital platforms. Despite this shift, some content creators continue to focus on the stories behind hawkers, cooks, chefs, and food businesses, rather than just the food itself. For example, home-based ventures such as Jayce Ong’s SGBrisketKitchen have gained recognition through content creators like Our Grandfather Story or SethLui.com. While social media and content creators mainly promote businesses, their content also serves a documentary purpose. However, social media content is an ephemeral medium, and these histories risk being lost if they are not archived and preserved properly.
What can we do, either as a food business, a content creator or a consumer, to preserve this present heritage? These businesses and their stories contribute to the vibrant tapestry of everyday life in Singapore. We should document what we can since these businesses may not last forever. Social media archives only last as long as online platforms on which they reside, so the platform is important as well.
This is why NLB’s initiatives to document what we have in this moment are vital for future generations. Why not check out some ways that you, too, can contribute:
1) NLB’s Web Archive Singapore captures snapshots of websites, so that these website archives are preserved even if the website closes down in the future. If you see a website with substantial Singapore-related content, without a “.sg” in its domain, you can recommend it for archiving.
2) NLB’s Singapore Memories — Documenting Our Stories Together initiative collects stories in various formats, so that these stories and histories are preserved for the future. There is even a collection theme for your favourite places to eat, where you can share your stories and records of what you think are important food places to document.
Recording, collecting and preserving memories is a collective effort from all walks of life. I hope that future librarians or researchers can have a deep and wide range of archived memories to explore, to share and tell an exciting history of today’s world.
Keen to read more about the history and stories of our hawkers? Check out these titles:
Eat Here or Take Away?: All About Singapore Hawker Culture (Singapore: Landmark Books, 2022) (Call no: 647.955957 EAT)
Lily Kong, Singapore Hawker Centres: People, Places, Food (2nd edition) (Singapore: National Environment Agency; National Heritage Board, 2023) (Call no: 381.18095957 KON)
Lai Chee Kien, Early Hawkers in Singapore, 1920s to 1930s (Singapore: Focus Publishing; National Heritage Board, 2020) (Call no: 381.18095957 EAR)
Lai Chee Kien, Hawker Centre Food: Ambrosia for the People (Singapore: Achates 360 Pte Ltd, 2021) (Call no: 641.595957 LAI)
Ow Kim Kit, Delicious Heirlooms: Stories behind Singapore’s Oldest Family-run Restaurants (Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2019) (Call no: 647.955957 OW)
Kevin Seet is a Librarian overseeing the Business, Science and Technology collections at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library. He is currently interested in the histories and heritages of business and industry in Singapore.
