Amid changing tastebuds and market realities, is there such a thing as authentic Singapore hawker food?

Hawker Don Goh’s daily grind starts at 5am each day at her hawker stall at Circuit Road Market and Food Centre.
Though her Don Don Prawn Noodles shop starts serving customers only from 11am, she has hours of preparation to undertake to perfect the prawn broth and pork ribs.
Ms Goh, 58, grinds the shells of fried red-leg prawns and adds them to soup stock, along with pork bones and ingredients such as carrots to lend a natural sweetness, as well as cuttlefish to enhance the broth’s flavour.
She and her partner then spend three to four hours crafting a special sauce to massage onto the pork ribs, which are steamed after that. They also stir-fry their own chilli, a spicy mix infused with ikan bilis and herbs such as lemongrass.
The meticulous process ensures that her customers get an “authentic” bowl of prawn noodles, courtesy of her great-grandmother’s traditional recipe, the stall owner said.
It is a point of pride for Ms Goh, the first in her family to be a hawker, who noted that not many hawker stalls today still offer the kind of “taste and feeling of the past” deeply tied to heirloom recipes.
Over at the Haig Road Putu Piring stall, Ms Nooraisha Hashim and her family continue to knead each piece of the round steamed rice cake by hand – just as her grandparents and great-grandparents had done since the 1930s.  
The 41-year-old hawker believes that preserving authenticity in hawker food means relying on traditional cooking methods and handmade ingredients as far as possible.
“Once you add a machine (to the process), it is no longer authentic,” Ms Nooraisha said.
Her family still sticks closely to their traditional recipe of making the sweet snack, including spending three days just to process the rice flour, a key ingredient in putu piring.
The first two days are spent drying the flour, before it is sieved four times throughout the third day to achieve a very fine texture.
She tried to shorten this process to two days, but it “somehow did not taste as good”, she said.
Likewise, Mr Mujibur Rahman, 52, tries to uphold his family legacy of preparing traditional drinks such as teh tarik (hot milk tea).
Mr Rahman told CNA TODAY that his family has hawked these drinks for more than 50 years – first as street hawkers on Hock Lam Street, then at Capitol Shopping Centre, which temporarily housed food stalls in the 1970s.
Hock Lam Street, off North Bridge Road, was once a bustling eating spot before hawkers at the alley had to move to make way for urban renewal.
Mr Rahman’s family business later moved to Hill Street Food Centre before ending up at Tekka Centre in Little India, where he now serves drinks and prata from Ar-Rahman Cafe. 
For this third-generation hawker, a big part of preserving authenticity in his stall’s offerings lies in using “original” ingredients, as opposed to mass-produced and processed ones, and sticking closely to recipes that have been handed down over the generations.
For example, the stall still prepares its own gula melaka (palm sugar) syrup from scratch daily, for its signature iced chendol dessert. The syrup is then drizzled over a bed of pandan-flavoured green rice flour jelly, coconut milk and shaved ice.
They do not use any food colouring, artificial ingredients or preservatives in their preparation of the dessert, Mr Rahman said.
Despite these hawkers’ sterling efforts to preserve the authenticity of their fare, anecdotal evidence and CNA TODAY’s checks pointed to a growing sentiment among diners that Singapore’s hawker fare is losing some of its “traditional taste”.
Earlier this month, cookbook author Pamelia Chia wrote in a commentary for CNA that Singapore’s food is no longer what it used to be. She lamented, for example, that an otak-otak (spicy fish cake) she had bought from a neighbourhood shop tasted “more of starch rather than of fish or aromatics”.
Several people commenting across Facebook and online forum Reddit concurred with Ms Chia, with some complaining that hawker food standards have “dropped drastically” over the years, even going so far as to say that “true typical Singapore taste (has been) gone since the ’90s”.
Some regular hawker patrons interviewed by CNA TODAY also agreed with Ms Chia, noting that hawker food these days lack the authenticity and flavours they once enjoyed or remember from the past.
A 32-year-old cybersecurity specialist who gave her name as just Ms Lim said that she would consider a hawker dish to be authentic if its taste is largely consistent every time she eats it, regardless of how much time has passed in between visits to the same shop.
She added that she does not think hawker food today is as tasty as it used to be, because the older hawkers originally running the stalls have either closed their shops or increasingly moved towards a hawker-chain model.
“There is a famous bak chor mee (minced meat noodles) stall that I have patronised for about 25 years, but its standard has dropped a lot since the stall’s founder passed on. The new stall owners do still sell the same food, but it no longer tastes as good as how it used to be.”
While the yearning for nostalgic flavours is natural, experts said that the relationship between the flavour of a hawker dish and its authenticity is a complex one – and they noted that the two concepts are distinctly different, though very much intertwined.
Food blogger Maureen Ow, better known as Miss Tam Chiak online, said: “A dish might taste good, but if it deviates too much from its roots or traditional methods, I don’t think it should be called ‘authentic’. 
“Likewise, an authentic dish doesn’t necessarily have to be gourmet; it just needs to capture the spirit and soul of its origins.”
The government has been stepping up efforts to preserve Singapore’s hawker culture, with authentic hawker fare forming an integral part of its initiatives.
Last week, Members of Parliament voted unanimously in favour of an amended motion by the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) to continue the government’s support for hawkers and ensure that the hawker culture here will continue to grow.
Food experts here said that a hawker dish would generally be considered authentic if it fulfils the following:
Traditional methods of preparation – such as hand-pounding spices instead of blending them – also plays a role in preserving a dish’s authenticity.
Mr Cornelius Tan, chairman of Chinatown Complex Hawkers’ Association, said that hawkers did not use food processors and processed products in the past.
Having said that, the experts told CNA TODAY that an assessment of a hawker dish’s “authenticity” is very much subjective as well.
After all, what diners regard as “authentic” may also be influenced by factors such as the variation of the dish they grew up eating, or the memories they personally associate with consuming it.
Dr Leslie Tay, who runs food blog “ieatishootipost”, said: “How you define authentic really depends on the generation you are talking to and what they grew up eating. 
“This authenticity has nothing to do with the product itself, but really depends on what you grew up with. Everybody’s definition of ‘authentic’ will be different.”
Agreeing, author Ryan Kueh said that ideals of authenticity tend to also be linked to notions of time and heritage, where third- and fourth-generation hawkers are often regarded as more “authentic” since they build on their families’ existing hawker legacies.
Therefore, what Singapore diners might consider to be an authentic rendition of a hawker dish may have also evolved with time, Mr Kueh added. He has written a book documenting Singapore’s hawking culture, titled From Streets to Stalls: The History and Evolution of Hawking and Hawker Centres in Singapore.
Original dishes – brought into Singapore decades ago by immigrants to the island – have been adjusted or adapted over the years, so diners’ expectations of what constitutes an “authentic” version would thus change.
Citing the example of chicken rice, Dr Tay pointed out that the popular dish has evolved from the time it was first made by the Hainanese, who moved here from China.
“(The Hainanese) didn’t use to put the chicken into cold water after cooking to firm up the jelly. That was introduced by the Cantonese, but gradually over time, it has become something that all the hawkers do,” he said.
“So if today, you try to reintroduce the traditional Hainanese way of making chicken rice, it may not work or be well-accepted … because people are too used to (this common version) now.
“And if you don’t give diners the soy sauce for the chicken rice, they may not accept it today. But in the past, Hainanese chicken rice was never eaten with soy sauce,” Dr Tay added.
Mr Kueh, pointing to the popular Teochew braised duck dish, a variation of the original braised goose version, said that the evolution of these dishes could also be a reflection of diners’ changing preferences.
For one thing, younger generations of Singaporeans seem to favour food that is healthier, less oily and less salty. Switching from braised goose to braised duck is thus a natural transition, since the latter is often fresher – as it is more easily procured here – and its meat is also leaner.
Ultimately, the idea of “authenticity” in hawker food is one that is in flux and will continue to evolve, the experts said.
After all, food is cultural and a product of its time and the population, which will also alter and change over the years.
This evolution is not necessarily a bad thing, Ms Ow said, since it could be one way to keep Singapore’s hawker cuisine continually relevant and alive.
Hawkers themselves agreed with the experts’ definition of authenticity and said that they would love to stick to tradition as faithfully as possible.
However, they lamented that various factors such as costs and the need to cater to changing taste buds are making it increasingly challenging for them to do so.
For example, some ingredients that were once used in a dish’s traditional form are either increasingly difficult to obtain these days or can only be bought at a very steep price.
Mr Tan Song Ping, who runs Blanco Court Hot And Cold Dessert at Old Airport Road Food Centre, said that he now leaves out malva nuts, also known as “pang da hai”, from the cheng tng, a clear dessert soup that he prepares.
The second-generation hawker, who is in his 50s, began hawking with his father with a pushcart along Beach Road. They later relocated to the now-defunct Blanco Court Hawker Centre, before moving to Old Airport Road.
Explaining that the malva nut has become increasingly difficult to secure, Mr Tan said that its cost can fluctuate significantly, even going as high as S$50 a kilo at its peak.
He estimated that a kilo of the nut cost about S$9 a decade ago. Today, it tends to lie within the S$20 to S$30 range.
While the cheng tng tastes a little different without it, Mr Tan said that the tweak is necessary because he can no longer afford to buy the ingredient if he wants to keep the price of dessert reasonable.
For some hawkers, manpower constraints also prevent them from producing a certain dish in its more authentic form. 
Ms Gwennon Teng, 40, a third-generation hawker who runs Dong Ji Fried Kway Teow by herself at Old Airport Road Food Centre, said she has had to make certain decisions to ensure that the business stays cost-effective.
Despite the manpower crunch, Ms Teng still insists on frying each serving of the fried noodles individually, to maintain the taste and texture of the dish. She also continues to fry the pork lard herself, instead of relying on an external supplier.
These are at the expense of other items that she cannot afford to prepare on her own.
For example, she would prefer to make her own sauces, but she has had to stop making her homemade chilli, getting it instead from an external supplier.
She estimated that procuring a kilo of the chilli sauce from a supplier would cost about S$10. 
On the other hand, stir-frying it herself would set her back more, especially factoring in the intensity of labour and the five hours she would have to set aside to cook it.
The hawkers said that they also have to cater to the taste buds of diners, even if this means changing the original, traditional recipes.
Mr Naseer Ahmed Khan, 47, who owns Indian-Pakistani hawker stall Delhi Lahori at Tekka Centre, told CNA TODAY that he has made the gravy of his stall’s butter chicken dish sweeter and less spicy, compared to its original in India and Pakistan.
Similarly, while the chicken masala enjoyed in India and Pakistan is typically spicy and dry, Mr Naseer has modified the dish he sells, after noting that diners here tend to prefer having some gravy.
Aside from these factors, hawkers said that authenticity might also be compromised due to plain human error, since recipes and stalls pass through different hands over the generations.
So the issue is less about ensuring a complete adherence to authentic traditions, they added, and more about finding the sweet spot between preserving a dish’s authenticity and ensuring that it caters to diners’ preferences – at a reasonable cost of production.
Mr Naseer has had to slightly alter the flavours of the dishes he sells, but he takes care to ensure that it stays as authentic as possible in other ways.
He still uses a charcoal oven to bake the naan, a crisp Indian-Pakistani flatbread, that he dishes out at his stall – even if running the oven sets him back by about S$2,000 monthly in operational costs.
He estimated that he probably would spend just S$700 if he used an electric or gas stove.
Still, the cost is well worth it, he said, adding that his stall is known for its barbecued items, which simply taste different when cooked with a charcoal oven because he can better achieve the desired smoky flavour.
Some tweaks to the food are at times necessary to ensure the survival of both the dishes and the hawkers themselves, especially since the stallholders are ultimately running a business, industry players and experts said.
Dr Tay said: “Just staying authentic does not necessarily mean the dish will survive. 
“A lot of authentic food has disappeared because the general public just doesn’t appreciate it anymore or they don’t want to eat it … whereas other food has survived but has changed forms, so the sellers can continue to keep up with what the general population wants to eat.”
If the dishes do not evolve, the “technically challenging” ones could eventually disappear with time, Mr Tan the Chinatown Complex Hawkers’ Association chairman reckoned.
These include traditional food items such as sachima, a sweet Chinese pastry made of flour batter, and dragon’s beard candy.
This is because it is difficult to teach and learn to prepare such dishes and finding a suitable successor for the hawker could be a problem, Mr Tan added.
To ensure their continued survival, some hawkers told CNA TODAY that they are already making minor changes to their offerings such as providing fusion options while retaining the essence of the dish. This is to better appeal to younger diners.
For example, Ms Nooraisha of Haig Road Putu Piring has tried experimenting with the fillings of her signature snack.
Instead of using only gula melaka, for example, she now also offers chocolate filling as an option, in a bid to get younger generations of diners to try the traditional snack.
And it has worked: Ms Nooraisha said that the chocolate option is well-received by chocolate-lovers as well as children especially during Children’s Day in October. It is now a permanent fixture on the menu.
All things considered, is “authentic” hawker fare essential to preserving Singapore’s hawker culture? Must hawker cuisine taste exactly as it did decades ago to live up to its inscription on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity?
No, the experts said.
After all, hawker culture is meant to be enjoyed by the masses – and what constitutes the “masses” and what appeals to them have changed and it will only continue to do so.
Dr Tay of ieatishootipost said: “Singapore is very open and Singaporeans are very well-travelled, so they are often receptive to new things. Our hawkers are precisely a hot pot and crucible of different cultures.”
Although “authentic” dishes once meant Chinese noodle dishes, Malay nasi padang or Indian prata that were brought into the country by immigrants in the past, today’s authentic fare can also encompass dishes such as Sichuan spicy mala, Shanghainese xiao long bao, or Korean kimchi stew, all of which have grown in popularity at hawker centres in recent years, Dr Tay added.
Agreeing, Mr Kueh the author said that given Singaporeans’ increasingly cosmopolitan nature, food will evolve in tandem with this.
Perhaps, instead of insisting that hawker food stays and tastes the same, a more viable approach would be to work towards preserving hawker culture as a whole – looking to safeguard its essence and spirit, the experts added.
Indeed, the authorities have for years strived to preserve Singapore’s hawker tradition, with the parliamentary vote on the amended PSP motion on supporting hawkers being the latest move.
For example, the Hawkers Succession Scheme was launched in 2022 to help veteran hawkers pass down their skills, recipes and hawker stalls to aspiring hawkers. These experienced food sellers are the ones who intend to retire but are unable to find suitable successors among their family members or relatives.
To provide eligible aspiring hawkers with opportunities to start their business, the National Environment Agency (NEA) also launched the Incubation Stall Programme.
Successful applicants would be offered stalls at 50 per cent of the market rent for nine months, followed by 75 per cent of the market rent for another six months. 
To ease the perennial manpower crunch, the government announced last month that hawker stalls will be allowed to hire long-term visit pass holders who have been approved to work in Singapore as stall assistants from Jan 1 next year.
For now, only Singapore citizens and permanent residents can be stallholders or work as stall assistants in hawker centres managed by NEA and its appointed operators. 
Individuals such as food historian Khir Johari have also taken it upon themselves to preserve authentic hawker fare by documenting recipes and photos of traditional cuisine.
Mr Khir’s 600-page tome, titled The Food of Singapore Malays: Gastronomic Travels Through The Archipelago, not only has a wealth of recipes of traditional Malay dishes, it also lovingly charts the history of Malay cuisine and how it evolved alongside Malay culture and lifestyles.
Hawker chains, which are on the rise, can play a role as well in ensuring that Singapore’s authentic hawker traditions live on, Ms Ow the food blogger said.
Understandably, some diners have expressed concerns about the rapid growth of such chains in recent years.
Ms Ow had concerns before that the rise of these hawker chains could dilute the authenticity of hawker fare, especially when dishes are scaled up and modified, or move away from traditional methods or ingredients.
Acknowledging the challenges that hawkers face – including that of manpower shortages and the retirement of older hawkers – she said: “By collaborating with heritage hawkers to maintain traditional recipes or adapt them with care, (hawker chains) can help expand the reach of authentic flavours while ensuring quality, since everyone is worried about authenticity now.”
She also said: “While tradition may evolve to fit a larger format, this doesn’t mean that we have to lose the heart of our food. With careful attention to the essence of each dish, hawker chains can help bridge the gap between honouring tradition and meeting today’s needs. 
“In this way, the core of what makes these dishes special can continue to thrive, allowing future generations to enjoy authentic Singaporean flavours.
“It’s about adaptation and respect for tradition, ensuring our hawker food can carry forward its rich heritage even as it grows.”
Where should the line be drawn then – if at all – when it comes to innovation, in order to preserve Singapore’s hawker heritage?
Mr Jason Ang, 57, who helms Yi Ji Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee at Old Airport Road Food Centre, has an opinion on this that may startle some food purists.
He does not have a successor for his business, but he is not too fussed about it because he thinks robots can take over what he does.
Speaking to CNA TODAY in Mandarin, he said: “I think robots might be the future. I think we will see a trend down the road of using robots to cook hawker food, instead of relying on actual manpower.”
Already, another hawker has begun to do so.
Unable to find a suitable hire to be a Hokkien mee cook, Mr Ang Chip Hong – an engineer himself – resorted to programming a robot to fry up consistent servings of hokkien noodles at his stall Wok AI, located along Margaret Drive in Queenstown.
Only time will tell whether this sticks.
Mr Kueh the author said: “Personally, I think one defining feature of hawker culture is the variation, or inconsistencies, in a dish.
“The food we eat have roughly the same ingredients – for example, bak chor mee (minced pork noodles) has noodles, sambal, vinegar – but each hawker’s version has varying little nuances that can be defining.”
Such nuances may be absent in a hawker dish cooked by a robot.
“For now, the novelty aspect of this hawker is the novel ‘inconsistencies’, which pique the public’s interest,” Mr Kueh added.
There have also been concerns raised that the move allowing long-term visit pass holders to work as stall assistants could eventually dilute the authenticity of hawker fare over time.
Can a hawker dish still be considered authentic if it is prepared with the exact traditional recipe, but by non-Singaporeans?
Why not, the experts questioned.
The ideal of authenticity is about a respect for tradition, Ms Ow said, adding that this is not limited by nationality.
“A non-Singaporean hawker who prepares a traditional dish with the same heart and skill as a Singaporean can still deliver an authentic experience. It’s about the care and passion for the craft.” 
Agreeing, Dr Tay said that if the person can produce the dish as they are taught, without cutting corners in its preparation, it can still very much be considered authentic.
“We will definitely see more of this happening,” he added.
“(Hawker culture) will continue to look so different even 20 years from now, but that’s what hawkers are here for after all: To provide food that people want to eat, at affordable prices – and what people want will only evolve over time.”
Teenager Aseena Banu, 19, agreed. She helps part-time at her parents’ hawker stall Hajjah Jamillah Rajmohamed Muslim Food at Haig Road Hawker Centre.
“Over the years, there have been some adjustments to the dishes we serve, but the core of the recipe has stayed the same. It’s always been about balancing tradition with what customers enjoy,” she said.
“Hawker food represents the heart of Singaporean culture. It’s about staying connected to where we came from.
“Food can evolve, of course, but I believe that no matter what happens, we must always remember the traditions that make our hawker dishes special.”