Food safety and tourism in Singapore: between microbial Russian roulette and Michelin stars

Abstract

Drawing on multiple culinary traditions, foodways, and networks of trade, food is both good and important in Singapore. Brand Singapore relies on food culture to market itself to the world, but also to its citizens. Hawker food, that is, street foods, are at the core of that marketing, becoming a by-word for Singaporean culinary culture. Cheap and delicious food was used to shift Singapore from a stop-over to a destination. But this also reinforces ideas about high and low culture, embodied in what a recent travel blog described as the “golden rule”: “When you're travelling in Asia, whether you're in Sri Lanka or Thailand, in Singapore or Vietnam, Malaysia or China, cheap food is the best food.” What makes Singapore distinctive in the framing of ‘cheap Asian food’ is that it is considered much safer, travelers can try new things without engaging in the “microbial Russian roulette of street food” elsewhere. At the same time, regulations and systems that keep people safe can be perceived by tourists to make Singapore, and by extension its culture, too clean, safe, and hygienic. As Singapore emerges as a global food destination with Michelin stared restaurants and a destination-fine-dining culture, the Singapore Tourism Board continues to recreate the Oriental mystique of the destination by cloaking the modern manifestations of Singapore with stories of its Asian and colonial heritage. In focusing on food safety, this paper highlights the tension between high and low food culture, between safe and unsafe, between street food and fine dining, but it also considers how they are being negotiate in Singapore. Taste, its arbiters, makers, and guardians, are raced and hierarchical. Singapore’s food culture provides an example of these orthodoxies are both reinforced and challenged.

摘要

新加坡利用多种烹饪传统、饮食方式和贸易网络, 使得美食在新加坡既品质佳又意义非凡。新加坡品牌依靠饮食文化向世界推销自己, 也向其公民推销自己。小贩食品, 也就是街头食品, 是这种营销的核心, 成为新加坡烹饪文化的代名词。廉价而美味的食物把新加坡从一个中途停留的地方变成一个目的地。但这也强化了人们对高雅文化和低俗文化的看法。最近的一个旅游博客描述美食的”黄金法则”为:”当你在亚洲旅行时, 无论是在斯里兰卡还是泰国, 无论是在在新加坡还是越南、马来西亚或中国, 便宜的食物是最好的食物。”新加坡之所以在”廉价亚洲食品”的定义上与众不同, 是因为新加坡美食被认为安全得多, 游客可以尝试新事物, 而不用担心其他地方发生”微生物感染的俄罗斯轮盘赌”（ 不小心感染食品的微生物中毒）。与此同时, 保护人们安全的规章制度可以被游客感知到, 从而使新加坡及其文化变得非常干净、安全和卫生。随着新加坡逐渐成为全球美食胜地, 新加坡拥有米其林(Michelin)的豪华餐厅和以美食为目的地的高端饮食文化, 新加坡旅游局(Singapore Tourism Board)继续以其亚洲和殖民遗产的故事, 掩盖新加坡的现代表现, 重现目的地的东方神秘。本文在关注食品安全的同时, 也强调了高端与低端餐饮、安全与不安全餐饮、街头小吃与精品美食之间的紧张关系, 同时也考虑了它们新加坡如何进行协商。口味, 它的仲裁者, 创造者和守护者, 是竞争和划分等级的。新加坡的饮食文化为那些即受到强化又受到挑战的正统观念提供了一个实例。

KEYWORDS:

• Singapore
• food safety
• food tourism
• tourism history
• Michelin stars
• fine dining
• hawkers

关键词:

• 新加坡
• 食品安全
• 美食旅游
• 旅游历史
• 米其林星级餐厅
• 高端餐饮
• 小贩

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicole Tarulevicz

Nicole Tarulevicz is a senior lecturer in History in the School of Humanities at the University of Tasmania, Australia. She is the author of Eating Her Curries and Kway: A Cultural History of Food in Singapore (University of Illinois Press, 2013) and a recipient of the ASFS Award for Food Studies Pedagogy (2013). She has recent articles in Global Food History and Food, Culture & Society and is currently working on a monograph on the cultural history of food safety in Singapore. She is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (2019–2021).

Can Seng Ooi

Can-Seng Ooi is a sociologist and professor of Cultural and Heritage Tourism at the University of Tasmania. His research in tourism includes policy development, destination branding, sustainability, cultural development, and the distribution of tourism benefits to the community. His works often draw comparative lessons from Denmark, Singapore, China, and, more recently, Australia. For more information, visit his personal website: www.cansengooi.com.