A Woman's Mission to Revive Traditional Chinese Candy

Yeo Min
I realised that the French are so successful because they are so open with sharing their recipes. They have schools all over the world. They share their techniques everywhere. But at the same time, Chinese people being Chinese people, or Asian people being Asian people, we are like, “Aiyah, paiseh, paiseh lah.” This is like a very humble technique. Like, I’m not gonna force my children to take on this business.

Jimmy
I think you can’t force them because they don’t want to learn, right?

Yeo Min
And there’s this idea [of] the hardworking Asian, right? “If you want to learn my craft, you commit your whole life to me.” There’s no such thing as coming in for a six-month internship.

Jimmy
You have to come in and scrub the dishes.

Yeo Min
Yes. You have to start by throwing the trash, and you work your way up. I respect that. I respect that these chefs spend their entire lives building an empire, their business, all these recipes. So I respect that. But that is a sure way for our practices to die, for these techniques to just disappear.

[Music playing] 

Jimmy
You’re listening to BiblioAsia+, a podcast produced by the National Library of Singapore. At BiblioAsia, we tell stories about Singapore’s past, some familiar, others forgotten, all fascinating. 

When I was growing up, I loved eating sweets, which probably explains why I went to the dentist a lot as a kid. But apart from the cheap sweets that you could buy from the provision shop, there were also sweet snacks that you could buy from itinerant hawkers. I remember eating a thick, sticky, sweet, brown concoction wrapped around a stick. I also remember buying chunks of yellow candy that were so hard the guy had to use a hammer and chisel to break off bits. You don’t see a lot of these sweets anymore, but fortunately, my guest today is doing her best to preserve traditional Chinese candy and desserts. Yeo Min is the author of a book titled Chinese Pastry School ↗ (opens in new tab), which focuses on traditional Chinese desserts. She was also a guest on the NLB cooking show, From Book to Cook, where she made three different types of traditional candy. Welcome to the BiblioAsia+ podcast, Yeo Min. How are you?

Yeo Min
I’m good. Hi. Hi. Thanks for having me.

Jimmy
It’s a pleasure to have you. We’re very excited that you’re here in the studio with us, but disappointed you didn’t bring any candy.

Yeo Min
Oops.

Jimmy
But, you know, we’ll get over it. When we approached you to come on the show [From Book to Cook], we asked you what you wanted to make, and you decided that you wanted to make traditional Chinese candy. Why candy?

Yeo Min
Ooh, why candy? I love candy.

Jimmy
Who doesn’t?

Yeo Min
I have a sweet tooth. I think it comes from my Teochew side. I have two Teochew grandmothers, and that’s where my sweet tooth comes from. I think there’s this stereotype that Teochews have sweet teeth.

Jimmy
They eat a lot of porridge, I know that.

Yeo Min
Yeah, but traditionally, I think a lot of sugarcane was grown in that region.

Jimmy
Oh, I see. Okay.

Yeo Min
But I’m not sure if that explains why my grandma has a sweet tooth. She’s also diabetic.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Yeo Min
And then my Hokkien grandfather, he likes savoury food.

Jimmy
Oh, okay. All right.

Yeo Min
And then he has high blood pressure.

Jimmy
Oh, okay. So we can see a relationship. I see a relationship.

Yeo Min
Yes. So not great news for me, but I do love my candies.

Jimmy
Okay. What made you interested in traditional Chinese candy? Have you ever eaten any of the candies that you made? As a kid, did you eat any of these things?

Yeo Min
Yeah, I ate too much, honestly.

Jimmy
Okay. So that I will not butcher the names of these items that you made on the show, what are they? What did you make?

Yeo Min
Okay, so the three items that I chose kind of represent the past, present, and future.

Jimmy
Oh, okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Interesting.

Yeo Min
So there was the pipei. Not sure if that’s how it’s pronounced, like -

Jimmy
What is it?

Yeo Min
It is a plum, preserved plum, and then it is stuffed with mung bean paste, and then this is steamed and then rolled in some sugar syrup.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Sounds delicious.

Yeo Min
So yeah, it tastes quite good. I’ve never had it before.

Jimmy
But that represents the future.

Yeo Min
No, that represents the past.

Jimmy
That represents the past.

Yeo Min
So I’ve never had it before. It comes from 1940, it’s from a book called Chemical Analysis of the Foods in Singapore ↗ (opens in new tab).

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
That’s where I found it, and then I was very curious, so I tried looking up, like, what is this thing? Where does it come from? And who makes it? Who made it? And I found nothing. So I just based off the info there.

Jimmy. You read The Chemical Analysis of the Foods, and based on the ingredients, you decided to make it.

Yeo Min
Yes. They did include some steps.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
So I just kind of mucked around and tried to make it.

Jimmy
That is so –

Yeo Min
Yeah, until I reached something that tastes like... You know, sometimes you taste something and you’re like, “I don’t particularly like this flavour, but I understand why some people enjoy it.” Yeah, so it was that. So I tried a few different types of plums. There were some super salty plums, some that were too tough, some that were too fresh, and then I ended up using some plums that I used to make umeshu with.

Jimmy
Yeah, I have to say, this is a lot of effort to recreate a dish you’ve never eaten that no one has asked for.

Yeo Min
Yeah. But it also gives us some leeway.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Cause there’s no one –

Jimmy
No one to compare.

Yeo Min
Unless someone listens to this and actually knows this dish, then I would be happy to hear how it’s supposed to be made.

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Yeo Min
But for now it’s like, okay, this is my best guess. Like, there’s nothing.

Jimmy
It’s almost like archaeology.

Jimmy
Right?

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
That’s so amazing. Okay, so that represents the past.

Yeo Min
Yeah, the past, and then the present one is ding ding tang.

Jimmy
Why is that the present? Because I never see it anymore.

Yeo Min
I still see that one uncle.

Jimmy
Okay. Is he on a bicycle?

Yeo Min
No, he just appears at pop-ups.

Jimmy
Oh, right. Okay.

Yeo Min
Bazaars. He looked to me like he was in his 70s.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
So he used to sell ding ding tang at the food court at VivoCity. So right outside there used to be a stand that they made to look like a little hawker pushcart, and he used to sell ding ding tang there. So he was a regular. I’m not sure. I think it got too tiring to do this every day, so he decided to do pop-up style, home-based, I mean, hawkers used to be home-based businesses, right? Like, it’s just that they couldn’t sell out of their flats. I guess they did sell out of the kampungs for some of them, but most of them would be moving around the city.

Jimmy
And for people who don’t know, what is ding ding tang?

Yeo Min
So ding ding tang is maltose cooked until it is hardened. So maltose is usually soft, right? It’s usually a thick, syrupy –

Jimmy
Okay. But I need to stop you there.

Yeo Min
Yes.

Jimmy
I had to look up maltose on Google.

Yeo Min
Okay.

Jimmy
So maybe tell us what is maltose?

Yeo Min
What is maltose? Okay. Maltose in Chinese is mai ya tang. So I never understood why because, like, where is the mai ya, right? So tang is sugar or candy. Mai ya means wheat sprout. So ya is the little sprout. Like you would say dou ya for, like taugeh is dou ya, so that’s the bean sprout. So mai ya is wheat sprout. Yeah. Okay, Chinese lesson. Mai ya because the wheat sprouts, they… Oh, then this is like a segue to, a science lesson. I did pretty poorly in Chinese, Biology and Chemistry, so, but –

Jimmy
That’s why you wrote a book –

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
A cooking book about Chinese food.

Yeo Min
Yes, of course. I guess the interest was always there. It was just that I never got exposed to the fun parts of it. Yeah, so okay. So when, when a plant grows, the seeds sprout, right? And then, usually there’s some stored starch. So they grow to a point, they start to produce these enzymes that will break the starch down into sugar. And then, sugar is energy, right? It’s the building block.

Jimmy
It’s the yummy stuff that we want to eat.

Yeo Min
Yes. It is why humans are so drawn to sweet things, because sugar gives energy and life and yeah, that’s why I love sugar. So they produce this enzyme that breaks down the starches, and then that’s what we want to harness. So the energy. Like, not the energy. The function of these enzymes is to break starch down into sugar. So what happens is that the wheat sprouts until a certain height, a certain number of days. The enzyme activity peaks, and then you chop it up and then you mix this in with cooked glutinous rice or any other kind of starch.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
So it might work with, say, tapioca starch, potato starch. I haven’t really tried all of that, but traditionally glutinous rice.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
So it’s cooked, and then you mix it together, and then you leave it in a warm place. So it needs to be like an ideal temperature for the enzymes to reach their peak function. And then, after like six, seven hours or so, when you open that pot, it’s going to look like vomit.

Jimmy
How well is your book selling? With just how you describe stuff?

Yeo Min
You have to be honest, right, so that people don’t get a shock when they open the pot and they’re like, “What is this?”

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
So okay. Yeah, not vomit. I guess it looks like porridge.

Jimmy
Okay. That’s a much nicer word.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So, like the grains and then you’ll see a lot of liquid. And if you taste that liquid, it’s sweet –

Jimmy
Oh, right.

Yeo Min
Because that’s the starches being broken down. Yeah.

Jimmy
Starches from the wheat.

Yeo Min
From the rice.

Jimmy
Oh, from the rice.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Or just the enzymes in the sprouted wheat –

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
That breaks down the starch in the rice.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So that’s what happens. And then you filter that stuff away. So traditionally the rice, well, there’s no more nutrients inside, right? So they’ll use that as chicken feed.

Jimmy
Oh.

Yeo Min
Because there’s bulk. Just, yeah, like humans wouldn’t eat it. Yeah, the circular economy of the past. So you feed that to the chickens, and then you take the liquid, and then you cook it down, and that’s how you get the thick syrup.

Jimmy
Very thick.

Yeo Min
That is maltose.

Jimmy
Then the ding ding tang is… You take that maltose. Now we know what maltose is, thank you very much. And what do you do with it?

Yeo Min
And then you continue cooking it. So for me, I added some sugar, some white caster sugar. Yeah. So I added some caster sugar to help with the crystallization, and then it will harden. So it’ll get more and more concentrated, right? ‘Cause as the water cooks off, you add some sugar, and then it will crystallise, and it becomes this hard slab of sugar.

Jimmy
Was that what I ate as a kid?

Yeo Min
There is one more step to it.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
So after that you cook it into a thick syrup. You need to pull the sugar.

Jimmy
You pull? Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So when you pull sugar, you introduce air into the syrup. And then the colour gets lighter. It becomes whitish, yellowish. I think what you described just now, a yellowish sort of candy.

Jimmy
Yeah, light yellow.

Yeo Min
Yeah. And then you dust it with cooked glutinous rice flour.

Jimmy
Oh, I see.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
So that’s the white stuff on –

Yeo Min
No, yeah, the white powder.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
It kind of prevents the candy from becoming sticky, ’cause [of the] moisture and humidity in Singapore. Yeah. And then when you knock little slabs off, the slabs get coated as well, and then they will stay as slabs. Otherwise, they’ll just stick together and become one big slab again.

Jimmy
Right. Okay. So that’s ding ding tang, which is delicious, but I didn’t realise that it was so hard to make.

Yeo Min
It is so much effort.

Jimmy
Okay. And what’s the third thing that you made? So that represents the present.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
You can sort of get it when this uncle appears at pop-ups.

Yeo Min
Yeah. It represents the present for me, because it is something that I saw a lot as a kid. Every carnival you’d find one uncle selling it there.

Jimmy
Really?

Yeo Min
Yeah. I remember the sound, and I would always drag my mother.

Jimmy
Okay. All right.

Yeo Min
My brother is not such a big fan of sweets, but there was me, and then I would be like, “Let's go! I hear the uncle. Let's go!”

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah. And then it would always come in this little packet. And so that’s, for me, that’s the present. Yeah, so the future, I picked bee pang., In Chinese, it’s mi tong. It’s a puffed rice candy. And, I mean, it existed in the past. It exists in my time now. And I think there’s a future for this candy.

Jimmy
Why do you say there’s a future for it?

Yeo Min
I think it’s because bee pang can be prepared and kept for a long time. Out of the three items, it is the one thing that can be imported from overseas. We don’t need to have artisans in Singapore who know how to make this necessarily for this item to live on. Yeah, so a little bit sad, but…

Jimmy
Okay. So it exists. Is it also commercially [available]?

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Factories are making it?

Yeo Min
Yes. Yeah. So you see it being sold at quite a lot of different places. Yeah, you might find it in a supermarket as well. I think it’s the most familiar looking candy out of the three.

Jimmy
Okay

Yeo Min
Because, kids nowadays, they eat rice krispies.

Jimmy
Right. Yeah.

Yeo Min
Yeah. Instead of marshmallow, you use sugar and maltose to cook this and stick it together.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Wait. Actually, I want to just go back a little bit to maltose, because you can buy maltose –

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Not in a supermarket, but baking supply shops and all that, right?

Yeo Min
Supermarket.

Jimmy
Oh, supermarkets also can. Okay. But you actually say that despite your description on air, that it tastes better if you make it yourself. What’s the difference?

Yeo Min
Wow. Yes. I think maybe it’s bias.

Jimmy
All right.

Yeo Min
But after you pour in all the effort, you want it to taste better.

Jimmy
I hear you. You’ve put in the effort, therefore it ought –

Yeo Min
Yeah. I think the maltose you find outside, the flavour is very standardised.

Jimmy
Okay. Yes.

Yeo Min
You know?

Jimmy
Makes sense.

Yeo Min
Yeah. 'Cause it’s produced in large batches and, yeah, I feel like the maltose that I make at home has a lot more complexity.

Jimmy
It’s a very time-consuming process, right?

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Because you have to order wheat. See, I don’t even know you could buy, like, seed wheat.

Yeo Min
You can.

Jimmy
Where?

Yeo Min
Online.

Jimmy
Oh, really? Okay. You cannot go to the supermarket and buy it?

Yeo Min
Supermarkets not so much. The reason you can find it online is because sprouted wheat is becoming a health food.

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
And people are using sprouted wheat for sourdough and stuff like that.

Jimmy
But so in this case, however, you buy the seeds, and then you sprout it.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Wow. What –

Yeo Min
And, no, I just want to say that a lot of people see this as a time-consuming process because you have to wait. But to me, waiting time is waiting time.

Jimmy
Right. And you’re not actually doing very much. I mean, you’re just adding water and putting it in the sun.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So I tested this recipe when I had COVID.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Many months ago.

Jimmy
Oh, yeah.

Yeo Min
Unfortunately, there was COVID, but fortunately, I had these seedlings to accompany me. And then my joy was waking up every day and seeing them grow just a little bit more.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah. And then when I recovered, I was like, “Okay, time to chop these up.”

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
And then I butchered them and, yes, and then we made –

Jimmy
Hope you didn’t name them.

Yeo Min
There were too many.

Jimmy
There were too many. Okay. What are your childhood memories of traditional Chinese candy? So I think ding ding tang, you were saying. And what else?

Yeo Min
Yes, maltose was one.

Jimmy
That’s the one where you stick the stick in it, and then you.

Yeo Min
Like chopsticks. We used to keep one tub of maltose at home.

Jimmy
Was this homemade maltose?

Yeo Min
No, no, no. So my family doesn’t really make –

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
Traditional food.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So that craving sort of came from the lack of opportunity to learn this. Yeah. But we always had one tub. I don’t know why.

Jimmy
Was it used in cooking, or was it just so that the kids could just stick chopsticks into it, and eat it and all that?

Yeo Min
So I was never able to open the tub myself ’cause it was so sticky.

Jimmy
Oh.

Yeo Min
And we kept it in the fridge because [of] ants.

Jimmy
Yeah, yeah.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So it was always my grandpa who would give us some after-school treat –

Jimmy
Oh, right. Okay.

Yeo Min
When my grandma wasn’t watching.

Jimmy
Cheap bribes for the grandchildren.

Yeo Min
Yes. And it’s sticky, so we’d keep our mouths shut for a while. And then he’d sit us down and read the dictionary to us.

Jimmy
He read the dictionary to you?

Yeo Min
Yeah, my grandpa was a language teacher.

Jimmy
Okay. Your parents are physics teachers.

Yeo Min
Yep.

Jimmy
And your grandpa was a language teacher.

Yeo Min
Yep.

Jimmy
You didn’t grow up surrounded by culinary experts or something?

Yeo Min
No, yeah. I grew up with my paternal grandparents, so we lived together, and my grandma was a nurse. Yeah, so no. And she had so many sisters that each of them took one child, and my grandma is the laundry expert.

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
So her third sister was in the kitchen.

Jimmy
Let me ask you, what’s the difference between traditional Chinese candy and candy like toffee?

Yeo Min
Ooh.

Jimmy
Is there a difference?

Yeo Min
I guess toffee is quite traditional also. I guess it’s the use of butter, if I’m not wrong.

Jimmy
Oh, I don't know.

Yeo Min
So in pastry school, we learned how to make candy as well.

Jimmy
What kind of candy did you make in pastry school?

Yeo Min
I remember there’s this very posh one called pâte de fruit.

Jimmy
Oh, oui.

Yeo Min
Oh, yeah. But when–

Jimmy
What is it?

Yeo Min
I studied it, I was like –

Jimmy
Pâte de fruit- pâte de.

Yeo Min
Fruit or something like that.

Jimmy
Fruit?

Yeo Min
It’s like a fruit paste made into…

Jimmy
Pâte.

Yeo Min
Yeah, but I looked at it, I looked at my chef. I was like, “This one is gummy, lah, right?” And then I got scolded.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
I was like, “Isn’t this like a gummy that we find outside?”

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Yeo Min
Essentially that.

Jimmy
A fruit gummy.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So we learned how to make pastry.

Jimmy
Which sounds better in French.

Yeo Min
Yeah, but I probably butchered it. I didn’t study very hard.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah, so there’s the traditionally made candies. Across the world, actually, there are so many different types of candies. It’s just, it’s quite a pity we only cover the very French ones, in school. And I guess when I was making, some of the candied fruit for my book, my mom was like, “Oh, this is like the gummies of my childhood.”

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So candied winter melon, because after you candy it becomes a bit chewy. It’s very sweet. And she tells me she would usually use this to makePeranakan bak chang, right, the Nyonya chang. And when my grandma was making these, my mom would sneak into the kitchen and steal a few pieces of this candied winter melon, and it’s gummy for her. She also used to buy these at the opera shows. So my house downstairs there’s an opera, Chinese opera, and then there’ll be stalls. Yeah, and that’s where she’d buy candy to eat.

Jimmy
Is there something that unites them all or distinguishes them from [each other]?

Yeo Min
I wouldn’t say there’s one attribute that distinguishes them. I do think that this love for sugar is quite universal, right? Because it’s energy. I think what struck me was when I went to pastry school, I didn’t know that there were these versions of candy in my culture. I thought my culture was very boring.

Jimmy
Oh, they didn’t have candy?

Yeo Min
Yeah like, we would learn sugar sculpting, and I was like, “Wow” like –

Jimmy
So amazing.

Yeo Min
– “Why my ancestors never sculpt sugar?”

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
But actually we did.

Jimmy
Oh.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So there’s this thing called tang ta, which is like sugar. Yeah, basically sugar sculpture. It’s used for prayers. And there is still one uncle in Singapore, one chef. Cannot anyhow call uncle. There’s this one elderly chef. His shop is at Beach Road, in that area, and he still makes these traditional –

Jimmy
Sugar sculptures.

Yeo Min
Sugar, yeah.

Jimmy
Are they used for prayers?

Yeo Min
Yeah. So they’re used for prayers. They are made in these wooden moulds. So very much like kueh moulds, but a bit more 3D. So, imagine instead of one wooden piece, you would have maybe two halves.

Jimmy
Together.

Yeo Min
Or you might have six pieces. You would tie them together with a rope of some sort. These have to be soaked in water for some reason. One reason is that when there’s water... Oh, my God, this is a science lesson again. The sugar kind of dissolves.

Jimmy
Yeah. That makes sense.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
And then you can unmould it quite easily. So these moulds are soaked in water. You cook syrup. You stir it until it’s pre-crystallized. Then you pour it into the moulds, and then you wait for a while. And then you remove the wooden moulds, and you would get these beautiful sculptures. Yeah. So not like sugar blowing or, like, sugar pulling, but you do have sugar sculptures in Chinese culture. Yeah. So when I found out, I was like, “Oh, I’m so ashamed.”

Jimmy
But there’s just one guy in Singapore at Beach Road who does it.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
So it’s –

Yeo Min
Now there’s –

Jimmy
Not like it’s a well-known thing.

Yeo Min
Yeah. And I think with cultural practices, a lot of them are tied to religion, right? So when religions shift, all these practices kind of disappear. But, yeah, I think there’s room for these practices to still exist.

Jimmy
Yeah. So, presumably after prayers, can... Do people eat this?

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Yeah?

Yeo Min
So my mom had this, if I’m not wrong. I think she mentioned she had this for their wedding. So it’s not so much a religious process. It was –

Jimmy
Cultural.

Yeo Min
Yeah, very cultural. And then after the whole guo dali, you know, the one where they exchange gifts and stuff, they use that sugar. So they cook the sugar sculpture.

Jimmy
So they don’t just bite off chunks of the thing?

Yeo Min
No.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
You might use it to cook a sweet soup, and then tangyuan inside. Basically, a lot of the Chinese prayers involve eating the blessings.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Yeah, you consume them.

Yeo Min
Yes. So you use it for your ancestors, and then whatever blessings they give you consume it, and then, yeah.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Tell us about Chinese Pastry School ↗ (opens in new tab), which is odd. Because it’s very hard to explain to people. Chinese Pastry School, but it’s not a school, it’s actually a book. For everyone who hasn’t seen the book, this book is amazing. It’s just over 200 pages, and Yeo Min didn’t just write and do the research. She also took the photographs, and the photographs are amazing. So, you know, you have to run out and try and find a copy because it is such a treasure. And you’re very talented. So tell me, why did you make it, or why did you put the book together?

Yeo Min
Okay. So I was in pastry school at that time. I quit my job. I was like, “Okay, I wanna be a pastry chef”, because then I can do creative work. I can maybe earn more money. I was wrong about that, the second part. So I was there for a bit more of the Western French skills. Then I met my teacher, my mentor, Chef Pang. She’s in her 70s. She’s this amazing chef, and she had so much to share.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
She taught one or two traditional classes. But she also shared that they had been cutting back on the curriculum quite a bit. And when they do cut back, it’s always the traditional stuff that gets cut because –

Jimmy
There’s no market for it?

Yeo Min
Yeah. You graduate with a diploma in pastry, you most likely go work in a five-star hotel or, like, a Michelin-star kitchen. Very few graduates would go to traditional bakeries. So –

Jimmy
Kueh also.

Yeo Min
We didn’t learn ang ku kueh. We learned how to make mooncakes. And I asked, “Why are we not learning how to cook the paste from scratch?” She said, “You can just buy it outside.” It pained her to say that, too, but yeah. So she talked me through the steps, and I was very inspired. Then the next thing that happened was I saw many closures of traditional pastry shops. So that was around the time that Tan Hock Seng announced their closure.

Jimmy
Oh, I’m not familiar with Tan Hock Seng.

Yeo Min
Right. Tan Hock Seng is a Hokkien bakery. Yeah.

Jimmy
Where were they located? And what were they known for?

Yeo Min
Somewhere in Chinatown.

Jimmy
Okay. No, no. But what were they known for?

Yeo MinThey were known for their beh teh saw, so they were made fresh. Yeah. And then, I was quite shocked. I think in a sense I was like, “Oh, why am I not doing anything about this? And why is nothing being done about this?” So, as always, I took matters into my own hands because what am I supposed to do, right? I see a problem, I can’t just wait around. That’s not really my style. So I was like, “Okay, what is, what actually is failing here? What, why is this happening?” And I realised that the French are so successful because they are so open with sharing their recipes. They have schools all over the world. They share their techniques everywhere. But at the same time, Chinese people being Chinese people, or Asian people being Asian people, we are like, “Aiya, paiseh, paiseh lah.” This is, like, a very humble technique. Like, I’m not going to force my children to take on this business.

Jimmy
I think you can’t force them because they don’t want to learn.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Right?

Yeo Min
And there’s this idea [of] the hardworking Asian, right? If you want to learn my craft, you commit your whole life to me. There’s no such thing as coming in for a six-month internship.

Jimmy
You have to come in and scrub the dishes.

Yeo Min
Yes. You had to start by throwing the trash, and you work your way up. I respect that. I respect that these chefs spend their entire lives building an empire, their business, all these recipes. So I respect that, but that is a sure way for our practices to die.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Yeo Min
For these techniques to just disappear. Yeah. And I was like, okay, if I can learn all these basic French techniques in 18 months, including a six-month internship, so actually 12 months was all it took to cover all the basic techniques. Everything from sugar to chocolate sculpting, to plated desserts, gelato, croissants, everything. Cookies, cakes. We covered everything in 12 months. I was like, “Okay, can I do the same for Chinese pastries? Is there a way that I can maybe consolidate all these techniques, translate them to an accessible language?”

Jimmy
Is there a place out there that teaches all these things?

Yeo Min
There isn’t a single place because Chinese pastry is very diverse. I mean, it. French pastry as well, I think most people don’t know that we learn how to make gelato in pastry school. The impression of pastry is, like, croissants, maybe cakes.

Jimmy
With flour. It involves flour.

Yeo Min
Yeah. Yeah. But we do candies, we do gelato. And the struggle with the Chinese pastry world is that it is also very diverse. Sugar work is one. The wheat, flour people… Flour people. They call them mian dian shi. So mian dian is basically everything to do with flour. So a mian dian shi might do noodles, pull noodles, bao, and baked pastries.

Jimmy
So anything that has to do with just white powdery stuff.

Yeo Min
Flour, wheat flour.

Jimmy
Wheat.

Yeo Min
Then you have the kueh people, the non-wheat people. So–

Jimmy
So the rice flour.

Yeo Min
Yes, rice flour.

Jimmy
Oh, okay.

Yeo Min
Then you have the tong sui people.

Jimmy
Which is what?

Yeo Min
The soup desserts. Yeah. And it’s not just these categories. You have regions.

Jimmy
But –

Yeo Min
So then everything is divided by region.

Jimmy
It’s very complicated.

Yeo Min
Yeah, so it’s very complicated. But if you think about it, the French went through the same thing. So certain –

Jimmy
Regional differences –

Yeo Min
Yeah. Certain pastries belong to certain regions.

Jimmy
Associated with, right?

Yeo Min
They originated from certain regions, and then it became a huge thing, and then everyone now eats them. I guess there’s a bit of loss of that knowledge, like, which part of France this came from. But at the same time, there are so many people making these now, and we are forced to study a bit of the history in pastry school. So I was like, “Okay, maybe I can do the same,” but I can’t set up a school ’cause I have no funding.

Jimmy
Hence the name of the book.

Yeo Min
Yeah, I was like, “What can I do? I can write a book.” Yeah, I was like, with whatever resources I have, yeah, what could I do?

Jimmy
So that explains why you call it Chinese Pastry School.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Because there isn’t a Chinese pastry school.

Yeo Min
There isn’t.

Jimmy
You wanted your book to essentially be that.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Was it very hard to get all these recipes?

Yeo Min
My dad asked me, “Why don't you go and study for a master’s instead?”

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
So struggling –

Jimmy
Master’s in what?

Yeo Min
I have no idea.

Jimmy
Oh, he just wanted you to do a master’s.

Yeo Min
Cause they’re academic people, and I was like, “You see ah, You see ah. Am I going to study for a master’s? I need to spend, like, what, $60,000 plus, if I study overseas [for] accommodations. No, I’m just going to do this research on my own.” So then I gave myself, like, $500. Yeah, I was like, okay, I’m gonna give myself a budget of $500 to buy a few books, buy some photography equipment, buy a tripod, a few nice plates for photography, and then that’s where we went. So, I bought some second-hand books, a few books from TaoBao. I looked up existing recipes from YouTube and TikTok, Xiaohongshu. Yeah, so there are people sharing little bits of information out there, but I have learned that not all of this is reliable.

Jimmy
Okay. You have to try it yourself, right?

Yeo Min
Yeah, and then you have to factcheck a lot. Yeah, and then there was this one book that I really fell back on a lot. It’s part of the Science and Civilization of China series. I think it’s out of print, so I managed to get a copy second-hand. It cost me 80 dollars.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
That was the most expensive book.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah, but it really talked about how a lot of these fermentation and traditional practices were –

Jimmy
Kept? Done?

Yeo Min
Done, yeah. Like soy milk, the processes were carved in, engraved on some cave walls.

Jimmy
Oh, really?

Yeo Min
Yeah, sometimes on tombstones, and then sometimes you’ll find, like –

Jimmy
On my tombstone you will not find a recipe, I can promise you that.

Yeo Min
Yeah, maybe on mine I might have one. Yeah, and then I also, of course, came to the National Library quite a bit.. I quite heavily referenced the 1940 Chemical Analysis [of the Foods in Singapore] ↗ (opens in new tab), for some relevance, ’cause writing as a Singaporean Chinese person, it’s always a little bit hard to draw the lines, what practices are considered Singaporean Chinese and what practices have stayed in China.

Jimmy
All right. Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah, I think people would be curious about that. I wanted to be very careful about that approach. Who am I to write all this? And it was COVID time. I couldn’t travel to China to do my research, so everything was done from my house. So there was me, and then there was Chef Pang that I would just randomly call and [ask], “Chef, is this one correct or not?”

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
“This one, this one how ah, why is this not working?”, and then she would send me her recipe, then I would cross-reference and see what went wrong, and then I would compare different components of each recipe, the ratios and stuff like that.

Jimmy
How many years of work went into this? I mean, it is not a small book. It’s very impressive-looking.

Yeo Min
Oh, thank you. It was around two years. So the time that you would take for a master’s, but I didn’t have to spend $60,000.

Jimmy
You only spent $500. Wow. What –

Yeo Min
$500 plus. 

Jimmy
What a discount.

Yeo Min
Plus my parents sponsored my phone lah, ’cause I was like, “I don't think a camera would work very well for me.”

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Okay, but the photography’s amazing.

Yeo Min
Thank you.

Jimmy
Apparently, you draw as well because there are –

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Instances here that you did. You did the research. It clearly is not just a bunch of recipes because you actually go into the whys, not just the hows, but the whys as well.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
And what’s interesting to me was that you went to pastry school.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Beyond pastry school, you didn’t really have that background in it, right? And your parents were physics teachers, not chemistry teachers.

Yeo Min
Yeah. I remember this conversation with my dad, ’cause I was a social worker before, so an arts major, right?

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
And then, he was –

Jimmy
I hear you.

Yeo Min
And then he was like, “Okay, in pastry, when you develop your recipes, are you going to make sure they are repeatable and...” What’s the other word?

Jimmy
Yeah.

Yeo Min
R’s in scientific experiments.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Replicable and reliable, something like that.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
Something like that.

Jimmy
It’s the reason why we are both arts graduates.

Yeo Min
Yeah, and I was like, “Oh, yes, it’s a very scientific process. I will only tweak one variable at a time. I will use the scientific method.” And he was very pleased.

Jimmy
Oh.

Yeo Min
He was like, “Ah finally, back on the science path.”

Jimmy
Sort of.

Yeo Min
Yeah, sort of. Yeah, and I realised, actually in pastry school we had to study a lot of science as well. The science of sugar, we touched on starch gelatinisation. I had no clue why because you don’t really see this process happening. So when I started making kueh, my second internship from pastry school was at a kueh factory. So that’s where I started to learn a bit more and see a bit more of that process of starch gelatinisation.

Jimmy
And then you understood why you had to learn it.

Yeo Min
Yes. And then I was like, oh, like I had so many questions, like actually when I asked my chef, like, “Why do you add this starch, this starch, this starch? Why do you combine so many different starches?” And then he would explain to me, he’s not a science person, but from experience he could tell you rice starch gives a certain firmness to the kueh. Tapioca is very stretchy, but if you want chewiness without the stretch, you could just add glutinous rice flour. Things like that.

Jimmy
That’s interesting.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
I didn’t realise that they mix different types of flour like this.

Yeo Min
Yes, yes. And the thing is everyone grew up with a slightly different texture. Like a different texture you would expect of a certain kueh because that’s what you grew up with, right? So in my book, I was like, okay, I don’t want to get cancelled because people get cancelled very easily in this generation.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
I was like, okay, I need to preface that this is what is familiar to me.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Yeo Min
But I will provide you with the knowledge so that you can tweak it however you like to something that works for you.

Yeo Min
And it is important that you tweak these recipes because I can’t make every version of a kueh.

Jimmy
But you can explain why the recipe is this way and how changing different variables would lead to a different result.

Yeo Min
Yeah. And I think that’s what they try to equip you with in pastry school as well. Yeah, you learn base recipes, you learn the traditional ways of doing things. So you learn like a classic tiramisu. After that you wanna do matcha tiramisu, milk tea tiramisu or whatever, it’s up to you. It’s up to you to tweak.

Jimmy
If you look at older recipes, well, what’s the oldest recipe that you referenced?

Yeo Min
Some stone, some cave wall thing.

Jimmy
Okay. That’s a very old recipe. It was written on a wall in a cave.

Yeo Min
I think the maltose recipe was one interesting one.

Jimmy
Okay. Why was that interesting?

Yeo Min
Because… Oh my gosh, this feels like so long ago. I came across the method for maltose-making in the Science and Civilization book.

Jimmy
Oh.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So then I was like, “Oh, actually, this is some ancient thing.” So then I think I referenced some of the proportions there to work out what should be correct. But also, I guess the quality of ingredients should have changed over the years, over the centuries. There was that. But also, I think another interesting thing was the fermentation. I have one chapter on leavened pastry.

Jimmy
Which is, which is –

Yeo Min
Leavened is –

Jimmy
Dough, which is… 

Yeo Min
Like fermented.

Jimmy
Fermented.

Yeo Min
Stuff.

Jimmy
Right. Okay.

Yeo Min
Yeah. And I think the idea of sourdough coming to Singaporeans is a very Western thing, right? Like, sourdough this, sourdough that, but natural fermentation is a universal thing. Every culture sort of has a little bit of this, right? Yeah, and in Chinese pastry as well. So, I wasn’t very successful at the natural Chinese sourdough, my stuff kept [growing mould] I have no idea why.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
It is something that I will continue to experiment with, I guess. But that really stood out to me, in the process of the research, in the book Science and Civilization of China. And this was about fermentation. Yeah, and it talks about the different types of yeasts used.

Jimmy
The different types of what?

Yeo Min
Yeast.

Jimmy
Yeast.

Yeo Min
That was cultivated. You have the red yeast rice. You have what we call jiu ping, which is like what you would use to make dapai also. So the ragi, similar, that white disc. Yeah. And I was like, what is this magic thing? Chef Pang, she says she uses this to make wine. She will randomly buy fruits, like whatever’s on discount at the market, and then she’ll just make wine out of it. 

Jimmy
Moonshine.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So I was like, wow. Like actually in the past, everything felt possible.

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
I think in this generation we cook by recipes and –

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
What is fed to us is what knowledge we have. So whatever the algorithm feeds us, right, on social media, these are the recipes that we come across. These are the recipes that we like, “Oh, I want to try the next viral recipe.” But actually in the past, there was so much, everything was possible. There was so much innovation. Yeah, it’s just very cool thinking about that.

Jimmy
Wow. Okay, you are not only a talented photographer, illustrator, and cookbook author, you also have a museum of food. Tell us about that.

Yeo Min
Ooh, yes. So I run a nonprofit, where –

Jimmy
It’s called the Museum of Food.

Yeo Min
Yes.

Jimmy
Good name. It’s very clear what it is.

Yeo Min
Yes, but people are very confused by what we do because we don’t have a physical space, so we are not a physical museum. We do hope to have a physical space soon in the near future we’re seeing how Singaporeans have been very welcoming of this idea of a museum of food. [Postscript: The Museum of Food now has a space 102 Joo Chiat Road.] 

So I realised that even with my book, the people who pick it up and read it can be quite self-selecting because you don’t just pick up a book and read it and [say], “Oh, I’m going to cook like everything from this book.” Very few people actually have that passion and the patience to do that. So my co-founder, Emily, she also wrote a cookbook, but hers is for children. It’s very colourful. With my co-founder, we wanted to find a way to make heritage food education more accessible, so meeting people where they are at, where they are ready to absorb all this information. We realised that even for cooking classes, heritage cooking classes, they are not the most affordable. And if I were to continue on this path of teaching Chinese pastry only, I would price my workshops at a rate that I can survive at. Yeah, which –

Jimmy
It’d be very expensive.

Yeo Min
Which would be quite pricey. Yeah. And also for individual chefs, like, you want to protect your recipes, your IP, right? So it would cost quite a bit to get them in to teach their recipes. So what we wanted to do was to create a platform for heritage food education, [for] workshops to be very affordable. We work with partners who might co-fund a workshop, for example, so that we can let people come and learn things at, like, $15, $20.

Jimmy
Oh, that’s very reasonable.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So then we see a lot of young families. We see young adults. They are actually very interested in this, but they could never afford a $100+, $200+ cooking class. Then we also do children’s activities. They play with Play-Doh that we have scented to make it smell like the original kuehs. So that’s where they get to see kueh moulds and experience what it’s like to shape kueh without the pressure of making the actual kueh. We also have child-friendly classes, and then we try our best to engage seniors as well. A lot of this knowledge actually lives among our seniors. I only know what’s in my generation. I know that ding ding tang [has gone] from something very common [to being] left with one uncle. But when I talk to Singaporean seniors, they tell me, “Oh yeah, food in the past was a lot tastier. The peanut flavours have changed. I don’t know what, flavours have changed.”

Jimmy
It always used to be better a long time ago.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Yeah.

Yeo Min
Yeah, yeah. So that’s why we try to do very intergenerational stuff.

Jimmy
So but you guys are actually hoping to have a space to put up stuff, right? And what kind of artifacts?

Yeo Min
Oh, yeah. We have quite a collection. We have this hawker carrier.

Jimmy
A what?

Yeo Min
A hawker carrier.

Jimmy
A hawker carrier, what’s that?

Yeo Min
Yeah. It’s like this. It looks like a giant tingkat.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
But hawkers can use it to carry their food out. And there’s a little warmer thing at the bottom.

Jimmy
You put charcoal at the bottom?

Yeo Min
You could. So it’s a bit unclear what you might put inside. I think this generation will put ice packs inside. Or dry ice. They will sell cold drinks.

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
Yeah. We have the ice kacang shaver, we have a coconut grater. We have the older chwee kueh moulds, the ceramic ones. And a lot of these are very nostalgic for the seniors. And when we bring these out with us, the Singaporean seniors, they will suddenly have stories to tell.

Jimmy
Oh, that’s lovely.

Yeo Min
Yeah. Then they’ll tell us all their stories, and we try to absorb them. And we are really looking for a space so that we can have more regular programs and do a few more programs that might not earn that much money. Because in our current mode, it’s like if we pay for rental for a space, we definitely need to charge for programs.

Jimmy
Yes.

Yeo Min
So if we have our own space and the per-day rental is actually not too much –

Jimmy
You can afford.

Yeo Min
We can afford to. Yeah, we can have free programs. We can do more reminiscence with seniors, and that’s what we really hope to do.

Jimmy
Oh, that sounds like a really wonderful idea, actually.

Yeo Min
Thank you.

Jimmy
I was looking at your website, and I noticed that there’s a lot of emphasis on sustainability.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
And one of the programs that I saw was something about turning your veggies into achar or something.

Yeo Min
Oh, yes.

Jimmy
And I didn’t realise you could. When I think of achar, I only think of a certain small segment of vegetables, right?

Yeo Min
Right, right.

Jimmy
But apparently that’s not true.

Yeo Min
We called it Anyhow Achar.

Jimmy
That’s right. What a great name.

Yeo Min
So I think the impression of heritage food in our generation is very fixed. Like, there’s this one way of doing a dish that is considered authentic, but that’s –

Jimmy
It’s an iconic form of that.

Yeo Min
Yeah. That is just the version that’s been passed down to us. So in Christopher Tan's kueh pie tee episode from last year or last, last year he looks at the different versions and in the different cookbooks over the years, there have been so many different versions. And then there’s the kueh jambang. There is the Malay version, like the vase, right? But to my generation, kueh pie tee is just a way to use up extra popiah filling.

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
Right?

Jimmy
Yes.

Yeo Min
So, yeah, so the idea that there’s this one version is something that we need to challenge, but not without basis. Yeah. So there’s always this struggle between, like, how creative can I get with traditional food and am I going to get cancelled for it?

Jimmy
Right, right. But tell me about Anyhow Achar. So –

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
What veggies can you use for pickles? I know traditionally it’s like cucumber.

Yeo Min
Cucumber. The ones you see now are cucumbers, carrots, pineapple. There’s also cauliflower, yeah, cabbage, cauliflower. We use long beans.

Jimmy
Oh, I’ve never seen long beans as pickles.

Yeo Min
Oh. Oh, maybe not that much pickled, like blanched, and then just mixed in with the spices.

Jimmy
Oh.

Yeo Min
And it somehow keeps quite well. What else did we put? I don’t really remember, but I think the idea is to teach people that base, the spice paste, and then let them go home and imagine what they [can] cook [into] achar.

Jimmy
Okay. ’Cause I love achar, and so maybe I might sign up for that.

Yeo Min
For us, at our workshops, we always invite our attendees to share their versions of something because every family makes a different version, right? So then there’s a lot of exchange. We just sit back and collect these stories.

Jimmy
Yep.

Yeo Min
Hopefully, this all adds to our national narrative of what Singaporean food is.

Yeo Min
Right? Yeah.

Jimmy
And then of course, you know, when you eventually have your physical museum, you can hopefully take all these stories and turn them into something.

Yeo Min
Yeah. So if anyone out there has a building to spare, please call me.

Jimmy
Yeah. Please, if you have a building that you’re not doing anything with, that’s centrally located, and you would like to turn it into an institution that preserves food, not literally because that would be a pickle, please give Yeo Min a call, she’s looking for a place. But I have to say that I think it would be a money-maker because Singaporeans love to eat. So a museum of food presumably would be very popular.

Yeo Min
Yeah. I think the idea is to keep this free and affordable for Singaporeans.

Jimmy
Okay. So I’m really excited because I think that what you’re doing is amazing, what you’re doing to preserve our food heritage in so many different ways. Not just by workshops and the museum, but also the book. So what’s the next book you’re working on?

Yeo Min
I was going to work on Chinese Pastry School 2.

Jimmy
Ooh.

Yeo Min
Part 2. I think there are a few things that I didn’t manage to cover.

Jimmy
All right.

Yeo Min
I wrote Chinese Pastry School with whatever knowledge I could access at that point based on my 26 years of life.

Jimmy
Wow.

Yeo Min
Which was enough to put together one book. I think for a second book and a deeper dive into this history, I need a few more years. Another book I was hoping to work on was about noodles.

Jimmy
What about noodles? What is this book about noodles? Do we need a book about noodles and why noodles?

Yeo Min
I just got married this year, and then I was like –

Jimmy
Congratulations.

Yeo Min
Oh, thank you. I was like, “Okay. What else can I work on?” ’Cause, like, the wedding is one project that you work on with your partner.

Jimmy
And then afterwards –

Yeo Min
Yeah. I was like, “What’s my next project with my husband?”

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
He loves noodles.

Jimmy
Any kind of noodles? Like –

Yeo Min
He’s Singapore’s number one bak chor mee fan, I think.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
And then he has gone on a car ride around the whole city to eat different –       

Jimmy
Hokkien mee.

Yeo Min
No. Char kway teow.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
He hunts for them.

Jimmy
All right.

Jimmy
That definitely sounds like dedication.

Yeo Min
Then I was like, okay, maybe we can work on a book about Singapore’s noodles, because we are very tickled. I think Singaporeans are all very tickled by the fact that people overseas think that Singapore noodles is that –

Jimmy
Yeah.

Yeo Min
That one dish. I was hoping to maybe touch on the different noodle manufacturers in Singapore.

Jimmy
Oh, that’ll be interesting.

Yeo Min
Yeah.

Jimmy
Do they make noodles in Singapore?

Yeo Min
Yeah. Actually, a lot of noodles are freshly made in Singapore.

Jimmy
Oh, really?

Yeo Min
Yeah. If you just Google it, you find these factory buildings that house quite a few noodle producers.

Jimmy
Right.

Yeo Min
Yeah. But you also, like, if you search the archives, you see these old photographs of these topless uncles. I remember seeing this photo of a bee hoon production factory.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
And this guy is grinding the rice, so the huge manual grinder, and he’s just grinding, milling the rice and making the rice paste for bee hoon. There’s another picture of bee hoon or mee sua drying out in the sun. Yeah, so I think there’s quite a bit of history.

Jimmy
Very interesting. Yeah. It’s quite amazing. So I’m really looking forward to these two books. Chinese Pastry School 2, and your book on Singapore’s… Rather than Singapore noodles, Singapore’s –

Yeo Min
– Noodles.

Jimmy
Noodles. Before we wrap up, let me ask you to complete this sentence, okay? If I say to you “food heritage”, so “Food heritage is”…?

Yeo Min
It is crucial.

Jimmy
Okay. Why? Why is it crucial?

Yeo Min
To me, food heritage is – Oh, I’m cheating, right? Food heritage is a lot of things. Food heritage is the knowledge of our ancestors.

Jimmy
Okay.

Yeo Min
There’s this concept of cultural resilience that I came across very recently.

Jimmy
What does that mean, cultural resilience?

Yeo Min
So I think it’s quite a new phrase. Like, it’s a growing phrase. I think it’s seen a lot in sustainability. The knowledge of the past actually will take us into the future, and what pulls us together as a society and as a country are the practices of our forefathers, and food heritage is that. It is the knowledge of the older generations. It is very crucial to thinking about the future of Singapore’s food. Yeah, it’s not something that you can just forget. I think it’s something that we really lack the opportunity to learn in the modern world, where if your family doesn’t cook, and then you work as a chef, you are only exposed to the trending stuff. You work with chefs your age. You don’t get to work with the older chefs. It’s something that we will lose. And I think that’s my biggest fear. So I think food heritage is crucial.

Jimmy
Well, then I guess it all falls on your shoulders now to ensure that Singapore’s food heritage does not disappear into the wilderness.

Yeo Min
Not just my shoulders. Everyone’s.

Jimmy
Everyone’s shoulders. I volunteer to do the eating bit. And I leave it to you to do the research and the book writing, which you do a very good job of.

Yeo Min
Thank you.

Jimmy
Yeo Min, thank you very much for joining us on the BiblioAsia+ podcast. Don’t miss watching Yeo Min make these three different types of traditional Chinese candy on YouTube in From Book to Cook. All links and information can be found in the show notes or on the BiblioAsia website at biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg ↗ (opens in new tab). Yeo Min, thank you very much. It was such a pleasure having you. I really wish you had brought some candy, but it’s okay. Maybe next time. 

[Music playing] 

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast and the BiblioAsia newsletter. Thanks for joining us on BiblioAsia+.

Yeo Min, Chinese Pastry School ↗ (opens in new tab) (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Cuisine, 2024).

N. A. Canton, Chemical Analyses of the Foods of Singapore ↗ (opens in new tab) (Singapore: Government Printer, 1940).

This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Yeo Min for coming on the show.

Produced by the National Library Singapore, the BiblioAsia Podcast tells stories about Singapore history.