Colourful illustrations keep memories of wartime food alive

SINGAPORE - Pineapple soup with dried prawns, a delicious mix of sweet and salty, was a dish Reverend Michael Teo looked forward to on rare Sunday afternoons during World War II.

It was a refreshing change from a watery mix of tapioca and rice, a daily staple for his household of 12.

Recollecting the war remains painful for the retired Catholic priest, now 87, though memories of the sweet soup his mother made in the 1940s bring a smile to his face.

These moments have been transformed into colourful illustrations by illustrator and arts educator Julia Tay in her project Wartime Food SG.

Over several months, Ms Tay interviewed more than 20 individuals who survived the war. She put their stories, coupled with her drawings, on her website

wartimefoodsg.com

. It was launched in November 2024.

“These drawings revived my memories,” said Father Teo on Dec 9, when Ms Tay presented a framed illustration of his favoured dish to him in his home in Siglap.

The two have known each other since Ms Tay was a kindergartener attending catechism school in his parish at the Church of the Holy Family in Joo Chiat.

“I never thought I would see some of these dishes again,” said Father Teo. “We must perpetuate these stories because the young are not able to find these any more.”

Ms Tay, who is in her late 30s, said she came up with the idea for the project during the Covid-19 pandemic on a grocery run.

She had gone to multiple supermarkets but could not find the chicken stock cubes she used frequently.

“I got to thinking, with food restrictions going on, how did people survive in World War II?” she said.

Spurred to find out more, she borrowed a book titled Wartime Kitchen from the library, and later applied for a National Heritage Board grant that covered half her project costs.

She wanted to centre her illustrations on stories from eyewitnesses, whom she got to know through friends, family and two social service agencies – Lions Befrienders and Montfort Care.

Over the first half of 2023, she spoke to 22 people, mostly in their 80s.

They would have been children during the war.

She was so affected by their stories that she took a break from interviews midway.

“Some of them went through such trauma, you feel guilty growing up in a different time, and feel sad about the losses they went through,” said Ms Tay.

It is a stark contrast seeing them as senior citizens today who are relaxed in their later stages of life, and knowing what they went through, she added.

As a child, both her grandfathers were tight-lipped about the war.

One would mention only that when his siblings were taken by the Japanese, he had wanted to go with them on the truck, but a soldier threw him down.

“That was a point in the family where we knew something had happened to him, but he would not say more,” said Ms Tay.

Her other grandfather would not allow Japanese shows in the house, and she was careful not to speak about the war in front of him.

“Only after interviewing these people did I know how sensitive the topic really was, and I realised why my grandparents were the way they were,” said Ms Tay.

With the project on an online platform, she hopes younger Singaporeans will learn from the stories of these individuals who went through so much and came out more resilient, said Ms Tay.

She plans to conduct activity-based workshops for children and teenagers to understand more about the war.

“I hope they can learn from the stories. Many of the interviewees were children at the time during the war too. They were innocent and got by as best as they could,” said Ms Tay.

She has also contacted museums and the National Library Board to potentially hold an exhibition based on the project.

Some of her illustrations are available on her website as e-postcards that can be downloaded for free by members of the public.