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Wartime Kitchen

Food and Eating in Singapore (1942-1950)

Wong Hong Suen, Christopher Tan

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240 x 170 mm — 144 pages — 25
ISBN : 978-9-81421-758-3
  • describes the food situation during the Japanese Occupation in Singapore
  • tells of the memories, anecdotes and remniscences of the people during the period
  • includes selected recipes "created" by people during a time of hardship and rationed supplies

Wartime Kitchen examines the experience of people during the period following the fall of Singapore in 1942 up to 1950. The author presents an in-depth yet lively research comprising anecdotes, personal reminiscences on food and eating and a collection of recipes in wartime Singapore. How did people cope with the food regime of rationed goods, bureaucracy and unpredictable supply? How did they sustain themselves by exploiting opportunities in varied and imaginative ways? Atmospheric and nostalgic in retrospect, it examines how hunger and the need for food became an impetus for creativity.

With references made also from the Oral History Department of the National Archives of Singapore under the Japanese Occupation Project, this book is a miscellany of memories, valued for how they reveal the textures of everyday life, lend an immediacy and vividness to events and flesh out the details embedded in archived records.

Wong Hong Suen

Wong Hong Suen is a curator with the National Museum of Singapore. Her love of both art and history led her to pursue an M.A. in art history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London on the Chevening Scholarship. She is currently responsible for the curation of the galleries that covers Singapore’s colonial history in the Singapore History Gallery and the history and sociology of food and eating in the Food Gallery. Besides developing themed exhibitions and documenting the museum’s collection of colonial prints and paintings, she has lectured on several aspects of Singapore history and has written on colonial photography, the social memory of food and the acclaimed Wartime Kitchen: Food and Eating in Singapore 1942–1950, and she has contributed to academic journals, such as History of Photography, and the following books: Food and Foodways in Asia: Resource; Tradition and Cooking; Singapore: The Encyclopedia; Vintage Singapore; The Past in the Present: Histories in the Making.

Christopher Tan

Christopher Tan is a Singapore-based writer, photographer, food consultant and cookbook author. He also contributes articles, photographs, and recipes to many periodicals and international publications including Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper, Saveur (US), and Appetite magazine, among others. He has presented talks focusing on cuisine and culture at the National Museum of Singapore and The Peranakan Museum, the Culinary Institute of America’s Napa campus, and has authored and contributed to several cookbooks.

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