It is now the peak period for purchasing many Chinese New Year items in shops as well as homes. These are items as simple as love letters and pineapple tarts for which everyone needs now during reunion dinner time.
But hidden among the bak kwa slices and pineapple cubes lie decades’ worth of other traditional snacks long forgotten in the hot sauce craze. These old school Lunar New Year treats were once part of Singapores heritage especially where the Peranakan community and the many Chinese dialects came into play.
Muah Chee – The Vanishing Peanut Candy
Drive around any heartland neighbourhood in the ’60s and you would easily come across a Muah Chee hawker roaming from street to street. These mobile hawkers had a wooden pail with crackers made from glutinous rice coated with crushed peanuts and sugar in a bowl. With appropriate scissors, he would cut rolls into pieces that could be taken by customers with their teeth.
While muah chee is still found today from some vendors, such a treat has faded from the public’s memory. However, this childhood snack is able to provide the sweet tape of Singapore’s past. These include Teochew roots and time-consuming cooking procedure which signifies the raw majority of Teochew and working population in the old days.
Enjoying this peanutty goodness, we raise a generation who grew up with simple traditional delights such as muah chee.
Tang Yuan – The Sticky Legacy of Family togetherness
Shown below is a calendar by Chinese families to prepare and make glutinous rice balls called tang yuan filled with sweet paste on the 15th night of the CNY celebration. Tang yuan is not only served as a dessert but has more significant meanings that represents the reunion of families. For them circularity symbolizes completeness and integration.
Traditionally it is a dessert containing savory black sesame or peanut paste, making it and requires the whole family to knead and shape the balls and boil them in soup. Some balls especially used by elders were specially designed to contain goodies like coins or peanuts within. This complex procedure of hand spinning connected families as they worked together and when entertaining they were together.
although homemade tang yuan still exists, people prefer the pre-packed frozen tang yuan one because of its ease of preparation. However, while eating the dish, one is forced to think about celebrations thus; It’s the teamwork that keeps celebrations valid.
Arrowhead chips – crunchy prosperity foods
To the Hokkiens, arrowhead chips were especially relevant to CNY. These ones were cracker made from arrowhead flour and sugar rolled and fried to golden brown and shops sold. Apart from being spiping and filling to be eaten with tea, the name of these ngo kor means ‘more gold’, similar to other auspicious Hokkien phrases, if reconstructed.
Consuming arrowhead chips meant blessings of increase in income levels as well as job promotion. It also symbolised their subjects’ successful commercial ventures and the ability to withstand life adversities. As such people used them for gift giving to family, friends and even employees and it was the age of plenty.
Although arrowhead chips can still be bought at some bakers today, either over-the-counter or in prepackaged form, its cultural associations are now obsolete, along with Singapore’s Hokkien language and culture. Nevertheless, it is possible to celebrate this crispy morsel’s lucky ancestry as we crunch through a sweater future in the brand new year!
Kueh Belanda – A Sweet Legacy of Colonial Rule
siang street snack foods expose the hidden paths that make Singaporean cuisine. Case in point: Sagu or spoonsese: kueh belanda or “Dutch cakes”. Although they got this moniker these baked pastries containing coconut, pineapple and cherries, are not in any way, related to Dutch cuisine.
However, they were derived from Indonesian cake based on the kind of cakes that were introduced by the Dutch during colonization. Which was imported by the Peranakan, they adopted the tropical fruit fillings that are familiar with the region. They used to be marketed and sold as luxurious treats and because of their red, gold and green colours, kueh belanda are now synonymous with Chinese New Year.
Kueh belanda is not as popular today as pineapple tarts and love letters that call out for photo shoots. However as we savor these sweet and juicy bite sized cakes we reminisce the Singapore’s diverse migrant background behind these multicultural creations.
Kueh Bangkit – The Enduring History of Eroding Biscuit
These cookies are very light and soft, almost dissolving in the mouth, which explains why they are popular throughout Southeast Asia – in Singapore they are called kueh bangkit, while in Malaysia kuih bangkit. Though basic in their appearances, the items they include have socio-political associations.
Bangkit is an Indonesian word derived from the Malay word for to rise. As the name suggest such cookies were originally made with eggs, coconut milk and rice flour with out any raising agents. Before the batter could rise it was only possible to achieve through vigorous hand beating an activity that brought womenfolk together.
They also symbolically decay In terms of their [ sic ] texture. These are like cookies – pretty as life but as delicate as it is. I regret that bangkit can only be consumed when they are fresh and to take time to cherish those closest to us is as rare as the Bangkit.
Today these easy homemade bangkit recipes with baking powder are made available for people to try. Still, it serves as a model of the already described method familiar as a connection through food and generations.
It’s not just the pineapple tarts and love letters this CNY do try to find out more about the other local snacks we rarely hear of. In every bite that was sweet and savoury, there was culture, dialect and history of Singapore that was represented. We reconnect with cooking traditions that gather people together, around a table, a meal, but more specifically around work and love shared between generations.
Although muah chee and arrowhead chips have since become less relevant to modern-day Malaysians’ snacking experiences they provide a potential signifies to bring back such taste and connotations through CNY. The older generations might be happy to discuss old family recipes and recall favorite food incidents.
Let’s think of CNY goodies as the roots of Singapore’s cultural heritage, representing values that are vital to society—unity, cooperation, perseverance, and the appreciation of loved ones. Just like traditional delicacies such as cookies, candies, and other festive treats, these goodies carry more than just flavor; they embody the spirit of togetherness that runs deep in Singapore’s social fabric. Often, the most meaningful aspects of culture, like the customs and values behind CNY goodies, are those invisible to the naked eye, yet they offer the greatest sustenance to our hearts and minds during celebrations.
