category
text entry
submitted by
Glenn Myers
United Kingdom
title
The Republic of Smorgasbord
Think plumes of steam, the clang and clatter of metal. Think barefoot old men pressed into
service peeling onions or chopping chillies; the twirl of a roti prata chef, cracking eggs with
one hand and spinning bread with the other; the sizzle of chai taw kway being swished
around a wok; the bubbling slurp of a fishball soup. Singapore is an island kitchen.
Is it the best spot on the planet for the daily meal? Consider.
The Chinese are the world's most enthusiastic and devoted foodies, eating everything, as
the saying goes, that has legs except a table. In Singapore, Cantonese fare is
supplemented with Hokkien cuisine (yong tau foo, anyone?) and with Hainanese (chicken
rice and fish head curry, for example -- the two dishes that fight each other for the job of
Singaporean National Dish.)
But that's just the start. Add the North Indian goodies: murtabak, mee goreng and rojak;
and the Malay-speaking-world's creamy, chilli-drenched laksa; its satay with peanut sauce
and compressed balls of rice; and its otak otak, so fishy and good they named it twice.
You're still not done. Singapore's role as global crossroads has gathered in guestrestaurants
from near (Thai and Vietnamese cuisine) and far (everywhere else). Just
across the water are countries that almost sink under the mass and variety of fruit --
temperate fruit in the Indonesian and Malaysian highlands, tropical fruit everywhere. A
durian? A dragonfruit? An apple? Help yourself. Inevitably, the fabled Spice Islands are a
few island hops away.
You can eat outside. Younger Singaporeans may not see how good this is, preferring to
huddle in air-conned eateries at the temperature of a meat-warehouse. But in the northern
European latitudes of my home, eating in the silky warmth of a tropical night is an
impossible, exotic luxury.
It's convenient. You're on an island so small that it's almost a single table spread in the
sea, a food-court stretching from airport to sea-port.
Singaporean cuisine is egalitarian: noisy, busy, cheap, open to all. The nation crams
21,000 restaurants into a city of 4.5m people: near enough one makan place for every 200
souls. Often they're packed. What does this mean? The whole nation is eating out most of
the time, as are all the tourists. Changing food, not changing weather, marks the calendar:
Chinese New Year, durian season, the Food Festival, the mooncake festival.
Singapore is the only country I know where it's worth sneaking into schools and colleges to
sample what's being served in the canteens. That's how good the food is. The English
used to build railways; the Dutch put up breweries in every land. If Singaporeans ever
colonize the earth -- or the moon -- they'll surely bring hawker centres with them, flying in
nyonyas to fry noodles in 1/6th gravity.
Eating in a hawker centre is listed in some books as 'one of a thousand things to do before
you die.' But that gets it the wrong way round. Eating in Singapore is one thing to do a
thousand times while you live.
Europe may have the International Court of Justice, but Singapore is the World Food-
Court. Which is much more fun.
I have a modest suggestion.
Forget New York, Geneva, Davos. Pass a law that anyone needing a treaty negotiated, or
thinking of starting a war, first has to meet their adversaries in a Singapore hawker centre
and eat with them. Chopsticks at twilight, surrounded (as you will be) by people of all faiths
and many cultures happily and noisily eating and talking together. Forget delaying and
fudging and marking time when it comes to international squabbles: try makan-time
instead. Pass my law, then pass the chilli sauce, and expect world peace to break out any
moment.