sg a definition: A Very Yummy Definition of Singapore Food

Yum.sg is definitely a very Singaporean website covering all types of cuisine found on this little red dot. Singaporean food is something we all intuitively know. But what is it really? Asiarooms.com defines it in terms of other cuisines - “The indigenous Singapore cuisine has heavy Malay, British, Chinese and Indian flavours.” What in the first place is indigenous to Singapore? On to the next better Google hit.

The holy grail of collective wisdom, Wikipedia, defines Singapore food as “heavily influenced by Malay, Chinese, Indian (specifically southern Indian styles), Indonesian, and even Western traditions since its founding by the British in the 1800s.” Interesting, it seems that the more cuisines quoted, the more impressive it sounds.

Singapore Tourism Board manages to skirt around the issue while injecting a cultural (or some would say nationalistic) slant to it - “Singapore’s cultural diversity is very much reflected in the variety of local food it has to offer - Chinese, Malay, Indian, Peranakan and much, much more.”

Either my Google skills are woefully inadequate or Singapore food just defies definition. Puzzling, as eating has often been declared as our national pastime. We just couldn’t resist the challenge. With at least a century and a half’s worth of cumulative experience in eating Singaporean food, we thought that we would take a crack at defining Singapore Food.

Presenting, a very Yum.sg definition of Singapore food -

“Singapore food is a mishmash of Chinese, Indian, Malay, Peranakan, Indonesian, and British cuisines reflecting the ethnic mix in our early colonial/immigrant culture. The result is a wide variety of dishes rooted in one cuisine but heavily influenced by the other cultures, or in some cases, dishes with no roots but with the influence of many cultures.”

Quoted 6 cuisines including a historical and cultural slant with some mention of the type of dishes to expect. Beat that!


Source: yum.sg