Hajah Asfiah: A Guardian of Traditional Malay Culture

[Music playing]

Jimmy
In 1986, Times Books published a Malay cookbook titled Hidangan Warisan Kita. The name, which translates as “Our Heritage Dishes”, was an important book, because it was the publisher’s first all-Malay cookbook. The book contains 178 traditional recipes and was written by Hajah Asfiah Haji Abdullah, who’s also known as Cikgu Asfiah. Cikgu Asfiah has been described as a teacher and guardian of traditional Malay culture. In addition to writing a cookbook, she was a well-known mak andam, which is a Malay wedding attendant, and her stall was a regular fixture at the annual Ramadan food fare at Bussorrah Street. In addition, she was a teacher all her life. 

I’m Jimmy Yap, and Toffa Abdul Wahed is with me to talk about Cikgu Asfiah. Toffa is a Librarian at the National Library of Singapore, and she was also a guest in an episode of the National Library’s cooking show From Book to Cook. In that episode, she made a dish from Cikgu Asfiah’s cookbook called bunga kobis. 

Hi Toffa, welcome to BiblioAsia+. 

Toffa
Hi, Jimmy. 

Jimmy
Thank you for joining us today. I’m very excited that you’re here with us again to talk about – this time about another cookbook author, Cikgu Asfiah. And you know, what I’m really intrigued about is that, you know, you took a dish from Cikgu Asfiah’s cookbook and made it for the National Library’s cooking show. What’s it called? 

Toffa
It’s called bunga kobis. 

Jimmy
Ah it’s called bunga kobis. And it’s actually a dish I’ve never heard of. You know, tell us a bit about this dish, what is bunga kobis. Is it really a flower of the cabbage? 

Toffa
Yes. Okay, so bunga in Malay means flower. Kobis means cabbage. So, when you look at the finished dish, once you’ve made it – a laboriously long process of making the bunga kobis – you’re supposed to cut it open, and it will appear as a blossoming flower. 

Jimmy
Wow. Okay. 

Toffa
Like a flower – bunga. Yeah. 

Jimmy
That sounds very pretty. Can you describe it? 

Toffa
Okay, like you, I hadn’t heard of the dish before. So bunga kobis is what Cikgu Asfiah classifies under gubahan. 

Jimmy
What does that mean? 

Toffa
Gubahan is the Malay word for a composition or an arrangement. And in the culinary context, it could refer to an elaborately arranged or prepared dish that consists of several components from garnish to decorative items. To create, in a sense, a dish that is complete and visually appealing. 

Jimmy
Was it a special dish? 

Toffa
It was. Gubahan is usually used as part of the hantaran. So hantaran in Malay means “a gift”. Okay the word hantar is to deliver or to send something. So, for instance, at a wedding, the bridal party would send gifts or hantaran to the groom and vice versa. So bunga kobis was, at a certain point of time, a popular and trendy dish to include in your hantaran. 

Jimmy
How would you describe this dish? 

Toffa
It is a multi-layered murtabak, not pan fried or griddle fried, but deep fried. So, it consists of making dough – pastry dough – and then making your filling. So, in this case, it’s minced beef or minced meat that’s been stir fried and cooked with aromatics – cumin, coriander seed, fennel, some onion, chili and Chinese celery. Yeah. And then, you would then put the filling in, wrap the dough up into, like, a parcel, and then fry it, deep fry it. 

Jimmy
Okay. 

Toffa
But that’s not where it stops, because you have to do this process another five times to create six layers. So, it’s like inception. It’s a puzzle within a puzzle. 

Jimmy
Yeah. Okay. That sounds quite cool. 

Toffa
And when you cut it open, it looks like the layers of a cabbage. 

Jimmy
Hence the name. 

Toffa
Yes. Hence the bunga kobis name. 

Jimmy
You’ve never made this dish before until, you know, we asked you to. 

Toffa
That’s right. 

Jimmy
Why did you pick this dish? It sounds very hard, I would say. 

Toffa
Yeah. It would be the last dish I would pick. I chose this dish after much deliberation and actually after speaking to Khir Johari, the author of The Food of Singapore Malays, which was published in 2021. I spoke to him to learn more about Hajah Asfiah, or Cikgu Asfiah, right. And talked about, you know, possibly which dish to make. And he was like, “You’ve got to make this. Bunga kobis, this is the pièce de résistance of, you know, Malay wedding hantaran. This dish is actually on the book cover of Hidangan Warisan Kita. 

Jimmy
I see. 

Toffa
But before I agreed or rather decided to make this dish for the episode of “From Book to Cook”, I asked my mum whether she knew anything about it. And my mum was like, “I’m not sure, you should ask your aunty, who was a mak andam, like Asfiah.” Yeah. So, I asked my aunt and she was like, “Oh, I made it for your mum’s wedding. How could she forget?” So, I went to find the photos of my parents’ wedding. And, yeah, there it was. Her bridal party. 

Jimmy
Your mum’s bridal party? 

Toffa
Yeah. She had given this as one of the hantaran gifts to my dad’s side. 

Jimmy
And so you actually have a photograph in the family album? The wedding album? 

Toffa
Yes. There in the corner, the blossoming cabbage. 

Jimmy
How amazing. 

Toffa
Yeah. 

Jimmy
Was that what convinced you to make it? 

Toffa
I think so. I was like, okay, this was a dish that was present at my parents’ wedding, and I would like to give it a go, taste it for myself. And yeah, honour that, you know, as a homage to my parents in a way. 

Jimmy
That’s wonderful. Was it a hard dish to master? 

Toffa
It put me totally out of my comfort zone, because, firstly, [of] two very technical things. Firstly, deep frying, and secondly making pastry dough. Yeah. I practiced it three times before I had to cook it for the episode. 

Jimmy
Did you get better each time? I hope you did. 

Toffa
Yeah. The first time was a total failure. I was like, “Why did I choose this dish? Maybe I should change it to another dish.” 

Jimmy
What happened? 

Toffa
Okay, so in the process of making the layers right, you must make sure that you do not tear any of the layers once there’s a hole or a breach in the structure of this bunga kobis, oil would seep in and basically flood the insides of your dish and [make] the dough very soggy. So yes. 

Jimmy
Okay, so that was attempt number one. 

Toffa
Yeah. And also, like the equipment I used – not ideal. But I did follow the recipe that Cikgu Asfiah put out because she wrote to use either a wok or a pot. So, I chose a wok because I didn’t have a deep enough pot for this dish. Because when you make the layers right, the kueh itself, the bunga kobis will become heavy, and it will become big. 

Jimmy
How big? Give us an idea how big it is. Like, okay. A head of a cabbage? 

Toffa
Yeah, it’s like a head on a cabbage. Like, slightly smaller than a rugby ball. 

Jimmy
Okay, Sounds pretty big. 

Toffa
Heavier than a rugby ball. Okay. Yeah. So imagine carrying this heavy item while deep frying. You might drop it into the oil. You might hurt yourself. So, my aunt, who was the mak andam, when I told her, she was like, “What are you using?” So, I told her, “I am using a wok. I’m using a ladle that’s for oil, and tongs.” And she said, “No, you can’t use any of those things, because tongs might break the skin of the dish. And that’s how oil got in.” And that’s actually what happened when I tried it the first time. She made this dish because at that time in the 80s it was very trendy to have this dish or, rather, a collection of dishes called, dua manis dua pedas.

Two sweet items and two spicy items. 

Jimmy
For the hantaran? 

Toffa
Yes. So bunga kobis falls under the pedas. Yeah. So, this was one of the dishes that she would make whenever her client requested for dua manis dua pedas. And it was very, very normal to have dua manis dua pedas at your wedding. You would need to use a deep pot, and she would use a very small rolling pin, of wooden rolling pin, that you use for making your pao, the very thin ones. 
To use it as like a backbone of the dish and to use it as something easy to grab on to remove the big cabbage head from the hot oil. Yeah. No tongs, because the tongs would tear the skin. Yeah. But, of course, at that time I was like, you know, I already practiced with this, I would just go ahead with it. So, that’s why you see, in the episode I stuck to the tongs. I stuck to the wok. yeah. 

Jimmy
Well, was that what [Cikgu Asfiah] recommended – using tongs or… 

Toffa
She did not. 

Jimmy
She expected you to figure it out. 

Toffa
Yes. Yeah. 

Jimmy
All right. This recipe was on the cover of Hidangan Warisan Kita. 

Toffa
That’s right. 

Jimmy
And you had never eaten it, but so did your family enjoy your failed attempts at making bunga kobis, the earlier attempts before you went into the studio? 

Toffa
Okay, so the first time the pastry became very soggy, right? Because there was a breach in the system. But we ended up just eating the filling – the minced meat filling. It was good. It was delicious. Okay. Yeah. Perfectly fine on its own. Right. Yeah. but it’s a dish that you would not eat a large amount of, because it’s very rich, it’s deep fried. It can be greasy. So, when I did ask my aunty, like, “How would you eat this dish? How do you share it?” She said, “Yeah, you just cut it out. Everyone takes a small portion just to taste.” Yeah. 

Jimmy
So, no one is expected to eat the whole thing. You just get a small, small bit. 

Toffa
Yeah. And I mentioned earlier it’s part of, it’s a gubahan dish, meaning it comes as a very elaborately prepared dish. So, in Asfiah’s recipe she recommends putting tomato flowers as a garnish. So, you would have to then know how to make a tomato flower, which I had to practice. 

Jimmy
Did you know how to make the tomato flower? 

Toffa
I didn’t. And she didn’t, she didn’t put any instructions on how to make one. So, you know, I had to YouTube it. 

Jimmy
Thank God for YouTube. 

Toffa
Yes, thank God for YouTube. Learn how to make the different types of flowers. And I went for the easiest one. Yeah. And you also need a bed of lettuce to kind of form the base. 

Jimmy
Ah. Okay. 

Toffa
To put the beautiful flower cabbage on it. 

Jimmy
Is it typically served cut already or as a whole? 

Toffa
I saw two photos of it. There’s one photo of bunga kobis in the National Archives of Singapore. It’s from a collection that covers Malay weddings. I think it’s from a personal collection that was donated to National Archives. I may be wrong, but the bunga kobis is also cut open already, so it looks like it’s blossomed. 

The one that appears in my mum’s wedding photo is also cut open. But the garnish is different. It’s not tomato flowers, but it was some chili flowers. 

Jimmy
Just to clarify for the people who didn’t, who haven’t watched the video, a tomato flower is not like the flower of a tomato. It is a tomato cut into the shape of a flower. 

Toffa
Yes, you carve the tomato into a flower. 

Jimmy
Yes. Which was quite impressive. I was admiring your handiwork with the knife. Tell us about Cikgu Asfiah. You know, she sounds like an interesting person and clearly an important person in safeguarding and preserving Malay culture. 

Toffa
Yeah. I think one of the journalists called her an activist of Malay handicraft. 

Jimmy
What does that mean? Why? 

Toffa
Because she was so vocal, and she was always voicing out about having to preserve, either through documentation or through sharing knowledge, the traditional Malay arts for the younger generation. And she appeared at many lectures, so people would invite her because of her expertise in so many various forms of traditional Malay arts, not only the culinary arts but also the arts to do with wedding customs, the art of embroidery, needlework, flower arrangements, and even the cultural traditions of doing traditional make up, hairdressing and accessories. 

So, she was always invited to lectures. Of course, it was also part of how she made her income, but she was so well-respected and esteemed that she would appear at all these avenues related to Malay culture, such as the Malay Cultural Fest that was held in the 70s and 80s to appear as the person to talk about all these traditional forms of art. She was a teacher for the earlier part of her life. 

Jimmy
Literally a teacher for a school. 

Toffa
Yeah, she was a schoolteacher. And after she retired from being a schoolteacher, she continued teaching in other avenues, and she also became a mak andam. 

Jimmy
So what do we know about Cikgu Asfiah? I mean, when was she born? Where did she grow up? 

Toffa
She was born in an area called Kampong Haji, which is today’s Bussorah Street. So she was born in 1920, and you know, Kampong Glam in general, or the area where Bussorah Street is located, right, was a very cosmopolitan area comprising people from different parts of Nusantara or the Malay Archipelago from the Baweanese, the Javanese. She grew up in an area where so many different diverse foods coexisted in the same space. Yeah, she herself was Javanese. 

Jimmy
And then what do we know about her early life? 

Toffa
She started cooking or learning to cook from her mum at the age of six. 

Jimmy
Okay. 

Toffa
Her mum was known for her kueh. And her mum also had a Ramadan food stall. Ramadan is the Muslim fasting month, and every Ramadan, once a year, her mum would set up a food stall. So, the whole area of Bussorah street, where people lived would have makeshift stalls in front of their homes. So, each family would have a food stall in front, just to sell food. After her mother passed away – I’m not sure what year – she took over the business, but as early as like six years old. 

Jimmy
She was already helping her mother? 

Toffa
She was already helping her mother make the kueh, helping her run the business and things like that. And at the age of 10, she was a teacher. 

Jimmy
What do you mean? 

Toffa
So, she went to Rochor Malay Girls School, which was not far from her house, her home in Bussorah Street, where she learned the art of embroidery and flower arrangement. At that time, education for girls was very short. So, after Standard Four, you’re done with school. 

Jimmy
Standard Four is approximately… 

Toffa
Primary Four, maybe five. Yeah. So, for a girl at that time, there weren’t a lot of options – so she became a teacher after she graduated at the age of 10? 

Jimmy
That’s crazy, right? 

Toffa
Imagine being a teacher when you’re 10. So, she struggled. She struggled really hard at the start, and she would have to have her other teachers help her, because her students were only a year younger than her and she was only 10. But despite being so young, she found love for teaching. 

Jimmy
She must have been very special to become a teacher, to be asked to help teach at just the age of 10, right? 

Toffa
Yeah, possibly. She was invited to teach because of her skills in embroidery and flower management. But not every student is… 

Jimmy
Cut out to be a teacher. 

Toffa
Yes, exactly. 

Jimmy
Especially at the age of 10. 

Toffa
So, possibly she was invited to teach and she was a natural teacher who would go on for the rest of her life teaching in different avenues and platforms. 

Jimmy
That’s amazing. The cookbook was published, I think, in 1986. How well was it received? 

Toffa
It was the first all-Malay cookbook. 

Jimmy
What does an all-Malay cookbook mean? 

Toffa
So Times Books International, the publisher, had by that time been publishing cookbooks by different writers about Straits Chinese cuisine, Singapore cuisine, Malaysia cuisine and it was all published in Singapore, in English. Of course, you had publications in Malaysia that were published in Malaysia, in Malay, but in Singapore, hers was the first all-Malay cookbook and also the first cookbook that focused on just Malay cuisine. 

And by writing that book, I think it was significant, because it put her in the company of people like Terry Tan, who had by then written books that were very successful. Betty Yu also. Wendy Hutton, who wrote a few books about Singapore food, and also Mrs Leong Yi Su, who was known for her Peranakan cuisine. So, she was the first Malay person, personality, and also the first Malay cookbook to be added to the arsenal of, like, the collection of Times Books. 

Jimmy
Do you know why Cikgu Asfiah decided to put this cookbook together? What did she talk about in a foreword or something? 

Toffa
She truly believed in documenting or capturing traditions and putting them into books for future generations. And she was very specific about it being hard cover. There was an interview after her book was published, in which during the interview, as reported by the journalists, she was very sad and she was teary-eyed and she recalled about, you know, “I’ve seen many of my students who would go on to become their own cooking teacher, or mak andam, and they tried to disseminate recipes in this very like flimsy cyclo-style booklet.” I’m not sure what cyclo-style is. 

Jimmy
Okay, thanks for making me feel old, Toffa. 

Toffa
It’s an older version of printing, right? They’re not very durable, so she really wanted a hardcover book that would, in her mind, last for generations. She had this idea since like the 70s to have books published about not just cooking, right. About traditional makeup, you know, the Malay way of doing your face, of making yourself beautiful is different from the way, let’s say, Western style of doing makeup and things like that. And she was also particular about needing to document Malay handicrafts, how to make them, the different types of Malay handicrafts, and she wanted them documented and captured into books. 

Things really fell into place for her at the end, towards the end of her life because it was only a year after she produced her book that she passed away. But in 1985 there was this interview that was conducted by this writer, Margaret Sullivan, who wrote the book“Can Survive Lah” Cottage Industries in High-rise Singapore. 

So, Margaret’s aim was to document the cottage industries of Singapore, like yoghurt making. Kueh making. And hence she interviewed Cikgu Asfiah for that portion on kueh making. And from that feature in her book, that was how Times Books came to know about her and approached her to make a book together. 

Jimmy
Yeah. That’s fantastic. Yeah. 

Toffa
Cikgu Asfiah’s cookbook came out a year later. So, it took a year of testing the recipes and writing. It must have been such a crazy time for her to produce a book in one year. 

Jimmy
Do you know what impact the book has had in the Malay cooking world? 

Toffa
So, one of the articles in the newspapers mentioned that if her book did well, it would be translated into English. But as far as I know, the book was never translated. So perhaps the reach was only within the Malay community and it never caught on outside the Malay community. Even though the Straits Times had a couple articles about her and the importance of having this Malay woman documenting these Malay dishes that were very traditional and on the verge of disappearing. 

So I have to say, you know, if it didn’t make it outside the Malay community, maybe her reach wasn’t far enough. 

Jimmy
Do we know if her reach extended into the Malay community to sell enough to people there? 

Toffa
There were advertisements about her book until 1991, at least I found advertisements up to 1991. In a way because she passed on one year after her book was released, more could have been done if she had lived longer, more promotion about the book, more public appearances could have been done. Because she did appear on the radio after her book and things like that. 

Jimmy
She was also a mak andam. Was she like, well known as a mak andam? 

Toffa
Yes, she was well known. Very respected. So, she had this regular class. She was a member of the Persatuan Kebudayaan Melayu Singapura, which is the Society of Malay Culture Singapore. She was also an executive committee member, elected as vice chairperson, and she would later be a founding member of the women’s wing of the Malay Society. And it is with this Malay society that she had this regular class on Malay handicrafts. And as part of the training, the students also had to learn some aspects of being a mak andam or at least the customs and traditions related to the work of a mak andam, which includes doing hairdressing in traditional style, doing traditional makeup and things like that. 

Jimmy
The people taking these classes are the people who wanted to be mak andam. 

Toffa
She did have students who would later follow in her footsteps, you know. So, she managed to inspire or empower certain groups or women to take on this vocation as a mak andam. But her students were mainly housewives, and she was also trying to attract the younger crowd, because she was very big on passing what she called the knowledge of the old people. 

Jimmy
That’s what she called it. 

Toffa
Yes. Kesenian orang lama or veteran, not old people, but more like… Orang lama in Malay would translate to literally “old people” or “people of the past”. Yeah. And she was very big about continuing the legacy of mothers, and I think she had a lot of respect for her own mum and she learned so much from her mum, who passed down so much to her that she wanted to pass on what she had learned herself to the younger generation. 

Jimmy
And she also passed it down to her own children, right? 

Toffa
Yes. So, her own children helped her. 

Jimmy
So, tell me about her children. 

Toffa
So, she had eight children? Yeah, and many grandchildren. But her children were very involved in her work as a mak andam, as a teacher and things like that. So, she had the help of her family members. especially her daughters. Salama Bashorun, I think, is her first daughter and her son Kairul. I believe that’s his name and her grandson, Azrin. And these were the people who helped her so much to write the book because she tried to enlist the help of members of the community, of the associations, the cultural association she was part of. 

She had difficulties concentrating on writing, because she was writing the book in her 60s. Maybe she was tired and things like that. And she was also, I think, having some kind of illness. But thankfully, her family members… 

Jimmy
Pitched in. 

Toffa
Pitched in, yeah. And that’s why she dedicated the book to her family. Yeah. And her children were also heavily involved, especially her daughters, in the running of the Ramadan food stall, because her stall was huge and they sold such a wide variety of kueh. 

Jimmy
Ah okay. 

Toffa
I think, 50 types of kueh. 

Jimmy
Fifty types of kueh! 

Toffa
Yeah. So, I mean she was known for certain types of kueh, but the diversity – and if you were a customer you would be spoiled for choice basically. Yeah. So, they helped make the kueh, run the stall and things like that. And her daughter Salamah was also someone who helped her run her classes. So, she would run classes about Malay handicrafts, about embroidery and needlework. 

And her daughter actually opened a shop in Eunos in the late 80s, I believe, or 80s, selling Malay handicrafts. 

Jimmy
The daughter definitely went on to carry on her mother’s legacy. Yeah. So, you’ve talked about her being a mak andam and, you know, all the classes that she conducted as well. But for the people who don’t really know what a mak andam does, and among those people would include me, what is the job of a mak andam? 

Toffa
So, a mak andam, or I mean, in English, we would call her a wedding attendant, has a very, very important role in the whole process before, during, and after a wedding. So, she’s in today’s context sometimes, you know, the mak andam’s work deals mainly with beautifying the bride, making up her face, putting on the heavy accessories on her head, helping her put on the clothes and choosing the clothes for her. 

But in the past, the mak andam’s job was much, much wider than that. She would be involved in this thing called the andam ceremony, which is where the name comes from. So the andam ceremony in traditional Malay customs is when the mak andam would basically remove the baby hairs – the tiny, tiny hairs – on the forehead of the bride. It is believed that if you remove and clean the forehead and all of those tiny hairs, it would increase the seri muka or seri waja of the bride, which is the visage, you know, giving her a glow in her subsequent role as a bride. 

Yeah. And the mak andam was also involved in guiding the bride and groom about certain things to do like the customs of berinai, where you put henna on your head before the wedding day. Yeah. So traditionally different groups of Malay communities would practice it differently. There’s a version where you practice three nights of berinai. Three nights of putting on the henna and not all nights would involve the groom, but all nights involve the bride. During the wedding the mak andam will lead the couple in giving their first taste of food, like you would feed the fruit to each other and things like that. And, also, after the wedding sometimes, this custom about the mandi bunga, or the bridal shower, like literally a shower of water. Yeah. So, all these different customs, the mak andam has to know every single custom. 

Jimmy
So the mak andam has to be like this font of culture and tradition. 

Toffa
Yes. Yeah. 

Jimmy
But today maybe it’s not as elaborate. 

Toffa
Yeah. So the mak andam is also like, you know the person who gives the bride away to the groom? Because in traditional Malay custom, it’s kind of like what we call the gatecrashing, right? You have to pay money to access the bride somehow, but in Malay custom when the groom comes and if he wants to go to the bride, the mak andam is the person who’s like, wait a minute, we need to exchange some pantuns. I’m not sure even today, sometimes people use money. 

Jimmy
Last time use pantuns. They were more educated, lah. 

Toffa
Yeah, I mean, certain parts of the Malay world still practice this, right? But in Singapore some people still do. But you know the art of saying the pantun, you know, in a live setting and just exchanging pantun on the spot. 

Jimmy
So, it’s not like rehearsed. 

Toffa
Maybe you can come prepared with one stanza, right? You’re just like riffing off each other. 

Jimmy
Yeah. It’s like a rap battle, pantun style. 

Toffa
It’s like a rap battle. Yeah. You never know because some people are truly talented. Yeah. So, a mak andam has to know and be able to come up with pantuns and to balas the pantun, which is to reply to the pantun given by the groom’s party. Yeah. 

Jimmy
I’m really impressed. 

Toffa
Oh, and interestingly, she was the mak andam of Harun Aminurrashid’s daughter. So, if you remember in the past podcast right, I spoke about Siti Radiah, who was a cookbook author in the 50s and 60s. So, her daughter for her marriage had Cikgu Asfiah as her mak andam. 

Jimmy
That’s such an amazing link! 

Toffa
It’s a small world. 

Jimmy
It is indeed a small world. Was it easy to research about Cikgu Asfiah? Was there a lot written about her? 

Toffa
Thankfully, there was quite a lot of coverage in the newspapers. Even before her cookbook, right, she was already a well-known figure. 

Jimmy
Ah okay. 

Toffa
So, it’s not just the coverage on her cookbook and her finally writing the cookbook, but because of her involvement in the Malay associations, cultural bodies like, like the Malay Society, and there was also another one, Majlis Pusat Pertubuhan-Pertubuhan Budaya Melayu, in short, the Central Council of Malay Cultural Organisations. So, she was very involved in the works of these two associations and the activities of these associations were very well reported in Berita Harian. 

Jimmy
So you were able to find lots of references to her in, I guess like NewspaperSG or something. 

Toffa
Yes. NewspaperSG is actually our database by the National Library where we digitise newspapers, including Berita Harian, from many, many years ago. So yeah, that was one of the important resources I had to tap on to find information about her. Yeah, but of course, you had books like Margaret Sullivan’s book, which was wonderful in giving us an introduction to her legacy in Kampong Glam as a kueh maker and as a Ramadan food stall vendor. She was involved in the curation of a display or exhibition about Malay culture organised by the Majlis Pusat or the Central Council of Malay Cultural Organisations. 

So, they held this thing called the Pesta Budaya Melayu, or Malay Cultural Festival in 81. I believe it was 1981, and she was invited to help, you know, give her input and also loan her personal collection of handiwork and handicraft to the exhibition about Malay handicrafts. 

Jimmy
At this point, however, in the interview I’d like to turn away from focusing only on Cikgu Asfiah, and to talk about other things, like, for example, you’ve written about belachan, you’ve written about Siti Radiah. 

Why is food history important to you? And why is it important? 

Toffa
Food itself is a lens through which you can understand history, right? And food can inform you about the evolution of culture, about women’s activities, about trade and commerce and things like that. So, I’m mainly interested in the lives and the stories of women. One avenue is to look at who wrote the cookbooks and why they wrote it. 

So that’s how I decided to write about Siti Radiah in the past, and also about Cikgu Asfiah now. Because in the larger scheme of things, right, when we think about culture, usually there’s a focus on like literature, focus on dance, drama, but the culinary arts as a form of cultural practice has not been, in my opinion, been researched enough in Singapore. 

And, also, who are the drivers of these cultural changes? Who were the writers? Who were the people really trying to document recipes and traditions? As a librarian, I have access to these materials, so why not just, you know, explore and try to write a biography of these women, the best that I can with the information I have. 

Jimmy
Yeah. Well, that leads us to our next question. What are you going to work on next? 

Toffa
I have no idea. I haven’t decided yet. Possibly about cookbooks, too, but whether it’s focused on a personality, I don’t know. 

Jimmy
We’re all waiting to see what else you’re going to work on. Complete the sentence. Food is… 

Toffa
Dynamic. 

Jimmy
Okay. What do you mean? 

Toffa
Food is never static. It’s always changing. You know, that’s why, you know, Cikgu Asfiah felt this huge responsibility to serve a community by documenting recipes because she saw that a lot of them were dying out. 

Jimmy
Actually, you’ve raised a really good point, right? Because actually the bunga kobis, if she hadn’t written about that written that recipe, you wouldn’t have known about it. 

Toffa
Exactly. Because the bunga kobis today in Malay weddings is gone. 

Jimmy
Completely. 

Toffa
Completely. And the hantaran that you see in the photos of perhaps your parents’ generation, the 70s, 80s and even the hantaran in the 90s is different from the hantaran you get today. Like for example from my own wedding right, last year, we didn’t have bunga kobis, because it’s fallen out of trend. We did exchange electronic devices, which people didn’t do in the past, apart from maybe like a Rolex watch. 

We had like a Nintendo Switch gaming console and things like that. 

Jimmy
Was it your hantaran to your husband or your husband to you? 

Toffa
My husband to me, yeah. I didn’t give him something similar, like a PlayStation or something. But, you know, for us to share anyway. So food is dynamic, if Cikgu Asfiah hadn’t documented this dish and made it the cover as well right, I wouldn’t have known, and my mum has forgotten that bunga kobis was one of the hantaran. 

Jimmy
At her wedding. 

Toffa
At her wedding. Yeah. So, I think it’s important to look at the sources, newspaper sources of course, but also speak to people who are still alive and who are cultural practitioners. Like, you know, my aunt who was a mak andam. To get the stories. And they themselves can tell you how food has evolved and changed over time. 

Jimmy
Toffa, you know, thank you very much for joining us today on BiblioAsia+. As I mentioned earlier, to learn more about Hajah Asfiah or Cikgu Asfiah and how to make bunga kobis, if you, too, are inspired to make your own bunga kobis, the recipe will be on the BiblioAsia website and you can find it at BiblioAsia.nlb.gov.sg 

Toffa, once again, thank you for coming on our show. We hope to see you again very, very soon, with whatever it is you’re going to write about next. 

Toffa
Thank you, Jimmy, for having me here yet again. 

Jimmy
My pleasure. Always a pleasure.

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

Hajjah Asfiah Haji Abdullah, Hidangan Warisan Kita (Singapore: Times Books International, 1986). (From National Library, Singapore, via PublicationSG)

Khir Johari, The Food of Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels through the Archipelago (Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2021). (National Library, Singapore, call no. 394.120899928 KHI -[CUS])

Margaret Sullivan, “Can Survive Lah” Cottage Industries in High-rise Singapore (Singapore: G. Brash, 1993).

Toffa Abdul Wahed, "Cikgu Asfiah Abdullah: A Cultural Luminary," BiblioAsia 20, no. 2 (July–September 2024).

Toffa Abdul Wahed, "Siti Radhiah’s Cookbooks for the Modern Malay Woman," BiblioAsia 17, no. 4 (January–March 2022).

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

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