Cheap Hawker Food Has a Succession Problem, Not a Recipe Problem — Epoche B1
A plate of food in a Singapore hawker centre costs a few dollars, and the reason is not that the cooking is easy. The buildings were put up and are managed by the state, and the rents on the stalls are held down. Mdm Tan has cooked in one of them for thirty-one years. People say the food is cheap because it is simple to make. Come at four in the morning and say that to me. I am here before the market opens, I cut everything myself, I cook until two, then I clean. Eggs go up, oil goes up. My price cannot go up, because my customers count in cents and they will walk to the next stall. So the rent is low and the margin is thin and the hours are long. That is the whole arrangement. Then what is the real problem? My son. He has an office job and he will not take this stall. None of the children here will. When I stop, this food stops. Her answer is now a national concern. Singapore's hawker culture was added to UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in 2020, and the National Environment Agency runs training and incubation schemes to bring new hawkers into the centres, with lower entry costs for beginners. Recipes are not what is missing. People are. The lesson is uncomfortable for anyone who admires cheap street food from the outside. A price that low is not made by simple cooking; it is made by cheap rent and by somebody working sixteen hours. Policy can hold the rent down. It cannot hold the hours down, and the hours are what the next generation is refusing. References UNESCO (2020). Hawker culture in Singapore, community dining and culinary practices in a multicultural urban context. Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. UNESCO. National Environment Agency (2023). Hawker centres: Incubation Stall Programme. NEA, Singapore.