How 3 young Singaporean chefs are celebrating heritage through food

Studying history often means poring over prescribed textbooks or examining artefacts behind sterile museum glass. But culture is alive and arguably best experienced via interaction.

Singapore HeritageFest 2025 provides the perfect opportunity to experience heritage, through this year’s theme “Intangible Cultural Heritage”, by spotlighting our living heritage with exhibitions, performances, and live events. Food has been highlighted as a powerful vehicle for cultural memory and community building—nothing stirs our senses quite like it. Culinary advocates Chinese pastry chef Yeo Min and Murni and Aqid of Sendok Rakyat know this best.

Yeo Min: From Social Worker to Pastry Chef

Yeo Min’s culinary journey began while she was pursuing a social work degree overseas. An intense craving for bak chang (glutinous rice dumplings stuffed with meat) spurred her to try recreating the flavours she missed from home.

From bak chang, she moved on to mooncakes and other pastries. “I started with Chinese pastries because I'm Chinese. It’s like…I cannot disappoint my ancestors, right?” Yeo Min jokes.

Beyond taste, she also found beauty in the labour-intensive artistry of Chinese pastries. It was also why she later wrote 'Chinese Pastry School', a cookbook that features 90 traditional Chinese pastry and dessert recipes. 

“The Chinese like round things, and that influences the way we make pastries. For example, for pastries with fillings, you would shape the skin into a bowl, put the filling inside, and then nudge the pastry over the filling; whereas with Western pastries, it’s less about wrapping and more about layers.”

After completing her social work degree, she began working in the sector but soon left to attend pastry school in Singapore. Inspired by the closure of long-standing traditional pastry shops such as Tai Thong and Tan Hock Seng, she took up a cake internship at HarriAnns and eventually transferred to their kueh department. 

Making heritage accessible through the Museum of Food

Yeo Min conducting a traditional Chinese pastry workshop, teaching children how to make rainbow ang ku kueh.

Yeo Min’s passion led her to co-found the Museum of Food, a mobile and virtual non-profit museum preserving tools, recipes, and cooking techniques. Her work includes conducting research, testing recipes, and designing experiences. Her skills gained from doing social work have helped in engaging seniors and facilitating intergenerational connections.

At the Singapore HeritageFest 2025, she ran the Ang Ku Kueh Making Workshop with Hokkien Huay Kwan, In-Kueh-dible Ondeh Ondeh Workshop with Singapore Children’s Museum workshops and the Stories of our Spices exhibition at the Singapore Maritime Gallery. Yeo Min reaffirms that those interested in attending need not be professional chefs. 

“They just need to have enjoyed food, reminisce about the flavours they have tasted, and share if a smell evokes a memory.”

Through hands-on workshops, she hopes to share the labour of love that goes into each handmade kueh with younger Singaporeans.

“Singapore food belongs to all of her people. Heritage food education must be accessible to all pockets of society. So, go outside, support your heritage businesses.”

Murni and Aqid (Sendok Rakyat): Keeping heritage alive through communal cookouts

Photo credit: Sendok Rakyat.

Murni and Aqid at their recent Nasi Ulam workshop.

Murni and Aqid of Sendok Rakyat (Malay for “The People's Spoon") started hosting small, informal picnics with friends in 2022, but today they have formed a shared community and platform for documenting Malay food heritage. 

Sendok Rakyat was born from a shared vision of a brand where “everyone can eat, everyone should grab a spoon”, aiming to get more people to engage with Malay food. To realise this goal, Murni drew from her family’s rich cooking traditions and Aqid brought his background in arts management and heritage programming (having worked in previous iterations of Singapore HeritageFest). 

“Part of celebrating stories is to have that very connection and share it with everyone else—if we can create the same memories with people around Malay food, that's great!”

Since its inception, Sendok Rakyat has evolved and adopted different ways of sharing and reaching out to people, through events such as food drops and communal cooking sessions. Throughout the years, their goal remains unchanged—to share the joy of good Malay food with everyone.

“At the picnics, we would begin with conversation starters like, ‘What is lemak?’ and the conversation organically develops. Through these casual sharing sessions, you can see how we are actually not so different.”

All their workshops, like the Gotong Royong - Nasi Ulam Recipe Crafting Workshop at the Singapore HeritageFest 2025, adopt the same fluid approach to have open conversations.

They start by sharing about the philosophy and narratives behind traditional Malay dishes. Then, they move on to understanding ingredient selection before encouraging participants to develop their own recipes and interpretations. 

“Heritage is not about bathing in nostalgia. It’s developing your own relationship with culture from your perspective, regardless of race. Heritage constantly evolves and that’s possible only when you discover new things about it.” 

Being the guardians of food, heritage, and community

Photo Credits: Sendok Rakyat.

Sendok Rakyat’s picnic workshop.

The Sendok Rakyat way of celebrating culture is inclusive and non-prescriptive. Murni and Aqid do not position themselves as authorities. Rather, they see themselves as facilitators who create safe spaces for others to engage and explore cultural food practices.

“While we do have our own opinions, we never dictate what’s right or wrong. Being rigid is the fastest way to eliminate change and exclude people. If your idea of what Malay cuisine is fixed or narrow, you should consider how there is no one ‘correct’ version of prawn noodles – there are more than 30 variations of the dish.”

At the heart of the project are two storytellers who want to create safe spaces for young people to connect with their heritage. That’s also why they champion the need for in-person food experiences.

"If you want to fall in love with something, you need to engage all five senses. There are no shortcuts. A building is nothing but a collection of bricks, unless you have an emotional connection or memories tied to it. We’re applying the same concepts to Malay food.”

Divided by approach, united by cause 

Even though their approaches differ, both initiatives show how heritage advocacy can take many forms while remaining authentic.

Food is a living archive that connects us through the generations and to each other. When we cook and prepare our traditional foods, we engage in a delicious and deeply personal show-and-tell.

Every eagerly taken bite and satisfied “mmm” is an unspoken affirmation of our ethnic roots. Around a shared table, food becomes the launch pad from where we can reaffirm our identities and question: “Who are we?”, “Where do we come from?”, and “Where can we go from here?”

One mouthful at a time, we are collectively answering those questions. And so long as we gather around food with curiosity, openness, and care, our cultural heritage will never truly disappear.

Whether through learning the delicate art of ang ku kueh making with Yeo Min or discovering the philosophy behind nasi ulam with Murni and Aqid, embark on a journey to rediscover our living heritage firsthand at the Singapore HeritageFest 2025. 

From 1 to 25 May 2025, immerse yourself in the vibrant stories, traditions, and people that shape Singapore's rich living heritage through more than 100 programmes.

Visit the Singapore HeritageFest 2025 website for more information.