Adaptation key to maintaining S'pore food heritage, says chef

Maintaining local food heritage in an era of Instagramable dishes is not an easy task, but chef Eric Low believes it is one worth taking on.

Mr Low, the owner of Lush Epicurean Culinary Consultancy, spoke with Straits Times food correspondent Eunice Quek in an askST@NLB discussion on local food heritage and cooking with local food sources.

AskST@NLB is a collaboration between The Straits Times and the National Library Board (NLB). The virtual talk was shared on ST's Facebook page yesterday.

NLB's From Book to Cook series on YouTube explores Singapore's history through food. The series' host and guest attempt to recreate historic dishes with traditional ingredients and tools.

Sourcing for traditional ingredients and tools is not easy, however, Mr Low said. Dishes like tau suan, a Teochew split mung bean soup dessert, have to be adapted with ingredients that can be found locally.

"Previously... we used to use dried tangerine marmalade, but (shops have) stopped selling that in Singapore," he said.

"So we use pandan instead... because it's easily found here in Singapore.

"There is always a way to maintain the essence of the dish's flavour with different ingredients."

He stressed the importance of sourcing local ingredients to boost Singapore's food resilience.

Food resilience is the ability to maintain a food system in time of crisis. Singapore's "30 by 30" goal is for the country to produce 30 per cent of its people's nutritional needs by 2030.

"We are on track in terms of technology and infrastructure, but all we need is support from the locals," said Mr Low.

The evolution of traditional dishes with local ingredients is necessary in order to preserve local food heritage, he added.

The public can check out resources on the topic from ProQuest Central, a database subscribed by NLB, at str.sg/proquest, using the keywords "food heritage" and "Singapore food". A myLibrary ID is needed to access this database.

• The video recording of this event and all past AskST@NLB sessions can be found at str.sg/askstnlb