Eating Culture

This Singaporean photographer is reimagining local cuisine, one dish at a time.

- Sng Ler Jun

TO FEAST in a hawker centre in Singapore today is to experience a barrage of the senses. Akin to an open-air food court, a hawker centre has stalls lined adjacent to one another in neat rows, with tables cluttered in front of them. But the tables rarely belong to any particular stall. Patrons are welcome to sit anywhere, to experience the heat, catch whiffs of spice and smoke, listen to the raucous banter between a hawker and his customers, and observe in awe how sumptuous dishes are made and plated.

In a hawker centre, an assortment of cuisines are available to satiate the palate. Locals are known to engage in lively debates about which hawker serves the best rendition of a particular dish. From a roti served with spicy curry to a bowl of wheat noodles drenched in prawn-and-pork broth, from a plate of poached chicken served with rice cooked in chicken stock to a herbal pork rib soup simmered and served in a traditional claypot, the choices are aplenty. Such are the wonders of the Singaporean food scene and the Singaporean cuisine.

At a time when globalisation continuously introduces new cultures and brings new trends into the realm of gastronomy, new twists to traditional cuisines are appearing more and more often. And while Singapore is never short of such surprises, it begs the question of what will happen to local cuisine if it is subjected to such twists. Will it lose its authenticity?

The Singaporean photographer Brian Bong was spurred by this to create his recent photography project, “For Here or Takeaway.” In the eight-part photo series, Bong takes dishes commonly found in our hawker centres, to modernise and reimagine. The results closely resemble the likes of café offerings.