This August, we feature passionate Singaporeans who are preserving our food culture and serving up their own narratives around local fare. One of these food champions is chef-author Denise Fletcher (former executive chef of Quentin’s).
Text: Amy Van | Art direction: Leyna Poh | Photography: Marcus Lim | Assisted by: McDouglas Lim
Denise Fletcher is the author of three cookbooks: Quickies: Morning, Noon and Night, Mum’s Not Cooking, and How to Cook Everything Singaporean. She received formal culinary training at Shatec Institutes and has previously worked in SATS Catering, Quentin’s the Eurasian Restaurant, Quentin’s Bar and Restaurant and Epigram Books. The Eurasian chef has also appeared on Vasantham and cooked for delegates of the International Monetary Fund and prominent local politicians and entrepreneurs. When not swamped with catering orders, she loves travelling and eating the world, with her husband, Sofjan.
WAS YOUR LOVE FOR SINGAPOREAN COOKING SOMETHING YOU GREW UP WITH, OR DID IT DEVELOP LATER IN LIFE?
I was a very picky and reluctant eater as a child, so my maternal grandmother (who took care of me as my mother worked full-time), had a very restricted rotation of two dishes: pork sambal (porku chili garam) and squid in ink (chorka pretu), for me. I would turn my nose up at virtually everything else. As much as it withered her soul to keep cooking these two dishes again and again, she had to put them on the table a few times each week, just to ensure I did not starve! I had always been surrounded by really good food: the colours, smells, textures, the sounds of pounding or sizzling rempah, etc. as both my grandmother and mother were outstanding cooks.
Some of my earliest memories were of my grandmother peeling onions, skinning liver or scraping turmeric at the kitchen table, as I did my kindergarten homework beside her. Though I hated eating, I was still privy to all these influences, still soaked in them, absorbing them and forming a keen awareness of ingredients and food, and how they were tied first, to my family’s food culture and beyond that, to the food and culture of my neighbours and the hawkers we patronised. I was already intrigued by the culinary diversity I saw in my small world of family, neighbours and neighbourhood hawkers, but that food could be an actual pleasure, and the stunning length and breadth of our culinary diversity and inheritance as Singaporeans, were things that I came to appreciate fully only in early adulthood.
WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MOST VIVID FOOD MEMORIES FROM CHILDHOOD?
I remember the platters of celebratory foods we received from our numerous neighbours, like biryani, murukku, bak chang, nian gao, Hari Raya kueh, rendang and ketupat etc. Of course we would reciprocate at Christmas with sugee cake, pineapple tarts and devil curry. The anticipation and excitement I felt whenever my mother took out her portable, round ovenette in December, was almost intolerable. Next, was a trip to the wet market to buy chicken for devil curry, roast chicken and pie. These were notable events that signalled the run-up to Christmas. We lived on a tight budget, but she had been saving all year so we could celebrate Christmas with a bang. She spared no expense: everything was made from scratch. The highlight, for me, was helping her make the pie pastry, then watching her line the pie pan and filling it to overflowing with fragrant stewed chicken. I felt so proud that she allowed me to pinch the pastry edge into a pretty border and brush the top with egg. When the pie came out of the ovennette, golden and flaky, wafting buttery, savoury aromas, I felt like I would burst. To this day, I make my Christmas chicken pie just as she had always done, and in our home, Christmas isn’t Christmas until we smell my mother’s chicken pie. I unexpectedly lost my mother in October 2024, so this tradition means even more to me now.
COULD YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY’S CULINARY TRADITIONS?
One family tradition that was rigorously observed was having only one meal on Good Friday. Without exception, that meal would be fried, stuffed cincaru (torpedo fish) in onion, lime and chilli soy sauce (pesce soy limang) with rice. Seconds were not allowed even if our stomachs still growled with hunger, after eating. On birthdays, birthday noodles (mah mee) was a must.
We often went without birthday cake, as my mother did not like to bake and shop-bought birthday cake was seen as a luxury during my childhood in the 1970s. But to not have birthday noodles was a sacrilege. Braised in homemade seafood stock with garlic and taucheo, loaded with squid, prawns and pork belly, showered with shredded omelette, cucumber, red chilli and coriander leaves, then finally, crowned with dollops of cucumber and pineapple sambal (sambal nenas). Having such a laborious and beautiful dish prepared in one’s honour is surely a sign of being loved. I would still appreciate a nice birthday cake – in lieu of – though.
HOW WOULD YOU DEFINE SINGAPORE CUISINE, AND KEEP THESE FOOD TRADITIONS ALIVE?
I am tempted to say that Singapore cuisine defies definition. It’s an improbable melange. For foreigners, it may sound maddeningly complex and impossible to grasp and label, but against all odds and expectations, as if by alchemy, all the influences have combined and coalesced into something beautiful, harmonious and confoundingly delicious. If I must define it, I would say it is a bubbling and evolving melting pot. We’re still cooking, it’s delicious but it’s still not quite done. It may never be done, but it will always be good (fingers crossed). This sense of “never quite there yet”, the constant desire to push just a bit further and “add a pinch of this, and a dash of that and see what happens” and that “ooh, that’s new! I want to try it!” curiosity, are the traits that keep our culinary landscape fresh, exciting and relevant. But curiosity and innovation are just half of the equation.
The culinary traditions of our forefathers are integral to the foundation of what has become our culinary identity as Singaporeans. They need to be cherished, preserved and protected. But this will not be achieved by gatekeeping our precious family recipes and keeping them secret — when we die, these secret recipes die with us — nor by only eating what we are familiar with, what we grew up with. We need to share our traditions, we need to open ourselves to what our neighbours are eating and give it a try. We need to cook more at home and get our children, our grandchildren involved. We must not take for granted that our culinary inheritance will survive and continue regardless. We must perpetuate it by our actions. If we don’t use it, we will lose it to new influences, because we have always been a geographical hub, and since the internet, the bombardment of external influences has only intensified.
HOW DO YOU STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN STAYING TRUE TO TRADITIONAL FLAVOURS AND EXPERIMENTING WITH MODERN INTERPRETATIONS?
Fellow cookbook author, Sharon Wee, had asked me last year, what I would come up with, if tasked to develop a Singapore celebration cake. In response, I dreamed up a layered sponge gateau, filled with tropical fruit and cream, showcasing the textures and flavours of rojak, including, unapologetically, the very stinky hae ko (fermented prawn sauce). It might seem incongruous to pair a delicate and refined gateau with the rudely robust and earthy hae ko but unexpected combinations like this really get my gears going. This “rojak gateau” is still on my to-do list and is very much in line with my approach to presenting traditional/Asian flavours in a modern/Western way, or vice-versa. Having successfully experimented with alternative applications of traditional Asian and Singaporean flavours like nori, miso, taucheo and black sesame, I believe getting the balance right, not losing the essence of the ingredient or dish, and coming up with something better than the sum of its parts, are what make new or different culinary interpretations work. If I don’t achieve these three aims, I’m better off just leaving the taucheo, hae ko and French patisserie alone.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE MORE OF WHEN IT COMES TO HOW LOCAL FOOD IS APPRECIATED, REPRESENTED, OR TAUGHT IN SINGAPORE TODAY?
More innovation, by chefs, by culinary instructors, by mothers or anyone who cooks for their family, for instance, blending traditional techniques with modern flavours, or vice-versa, so it appeals to younger Singaporeans, because I have a real fear of future generations of Singaporeans disengaging from their culinary history and legacy due to a lack of exposure and knowledge; it’s tragic when you don’t know the good thing that you have. I’m heartened to see this actually being done by a new generation of hawkers who innovate on dishes like min jiang kueh, prawn noodles, nasi lemak, etc. but I hope to see this movement grow to include and revive interest in lesser-known dishes like Cantonese braised chicken wings (Loh Kai Yik) or Teochew fish paste noodles which feel like they’re on the brink of culinary extinction.
I’d really like to see more help for hawkers, at a governmental level. How? Strictly controlled rents, especially for heartland hawkers. Sadly, many Singaporeans work too many hours and are too worn out at day’s end, to cook their own meals. Hawkers serve this very real need. Hawker culture in Singapore is world-renowned, and it should be more than just a PR tool or a tourist magnet. The tourists who flock here for it, and even locals, have no clue how soul-draining and back-breaking the life of a hawker can be. Many of them are one-person operations. I know, because I lived it. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow, and there were no hawkers. None. Inconceivable, right? They need to be supported and protected so they can in turn, continue to support the community by providing good, affordable meals which we rely on daily. Many complain that hawkers’ prices are spiralling upwards but don’t seem to make the connection that these prices are directly affected by spiralling rentals imposed by landlords left to their own devices. It’s such a common practice as well, for landlords to raise (already eye-watering) rents as soon as they notice their hawker tenant selling well. These landlords need to be reigned in so they don’t prey on hawkers who are already contending with too much. How do hawkers cope? They reduce their portion sizes. They cut corners on the quality of ingredients. The result? A vicious, far-reaching chain of effects: customers are unhappy, the population’s health is compromised, medical issues arise because many of us eat at hawker centres daily, even two or three times daily. It’s amazing that in spite of these significant challenges, hawkers still show up every day, still put in the grind, still feed us, body and soul, often at the expense of their own.
ARE THERE PARTICULAR HAWKERS, AUTHORS, CHEFS, OR HERITAGE DISHES THAT INSPIRE OR INFLUENCE YOUR WORK TODAY?
So many names come to mind…Pamelia Chia, championing pet causes like celebrating the cornucopia of riches in our wet markets and moving to a more plant-based lifestyle, something close to my heart. Sharon Wee and Zarina Anwar, documenting and preserving their family’s culinary traditions for posterity. Mary Gomes, who wrote the first local Eurasian cookbook. Terry Tan, whose delightful prose and humour, and wonderful sambal belacan fried rice recipe made life-long fans of my mother and me, and sparked the desire to write my own cookbook one day. Christopher Tan, whose stunningly beautiful and inspirational “The Way of Kueh” may have single-handedly saved our local kueh making traditions, and certainly pushed me far out of my kueh making rut. Yeo Min, who has probably done the same for Chinese pastries with her definitive “Chinese Pastry School”. K. F. Seetoh, widely acknowledged as the “patron saint of hawkers”. The man makes a lot of noise about the plight and struggles of our beleaguered hawkers and makes me wish I could do more to safeguard our hawker culture. Chef and restaurateur, Quentin Pereira, who works tirelessly to keep Kristang cuisine alive and well, grabbing every opportunity to bring it to a wider audience. He is indefatigable and pushed me to create, innovate and elevate, beyond my own estimation of my capabilities, when I worked with him, even as it felt like the floor had been pulled out from under our feet, during the darkest days of the Covid pandemic. James Chua of Lucky Her Kiao who makes Teochew fish dumplings and fish noodles by hand with stubborn conviction and passion. I know of no one else producing traditional, artisanal fish paste noodles in Singapore. Loh Mei Specialist and Charlie’s Peranakan are to my knowledge, currently the only hawkers in Singapore, selling loh kai yik. Loh Mei Specialist has been at it for the last 50 years or so. These two hawkers are literally keeping this laborious dish alive. One can’t help but admire such staunch dedication. When they call it a day, this dish will probably go the way of the dodo bird.
IF YOU COULD PASS DOWN ONE FOOD PHILOSOPHY OR BELIEF TO FUTURE COOKS, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Be open to new culinary experiences, open to learning different ways of doing the same thing, open to sharing your knowledge and your grandmother’s amazing recipes. If your recipe is not a trade secret, or how you earn your living, don’t gatekeep. Gatekeeping is a really good way to obliviate your (food) culture. Sharing enriches our culinary heritage and future-proofs it against extinction. The more public the knowledge, the longer it will live.