ON MY FIRST TRIP to Singapore, I was introduced to Hainanese Western food in one of the country’s numerous ‘hawker centres,’ or open-air food courts. Being British, I was struck by the familiarity of dishes like ‘chicken merry land’: a hearty portion of fried chicken, fried banana, fried egg, fried bacon, fried potatoes, and baked beans. This cuisine emerged at the turn of the 20th century, when immigrants from the Chinese island of Hainan arrived in British-occupied Singapore, taking jobs as cooks in military canteens, hotels, and wealthy European households. By the 1930s, many were opening their own restaurants and kopitiams (coffee shops), adopting cooking styles from those Western kitchens. Today, a dish like Hainanese pork chop is considered as Singaporean as chilli crab. When I moved to the city-state…
