Singapore's Two Annual Food Festivals
Singapore Food Festival versus World Gourmet Summit
Jun 15, 2009
The Singapore Food Festival returns in July for the 16th time, though in a more abbreviated edition than usual. Instead of running for three or four weeks, in 2009 it will only run for ten days, from July 17 to 26. The usually efficient Singapore Tourism Board's website is reticent about events this year; here's the most informed rundown.
Not to be confused with the newer, more rarefied annual Gourmet Summit, the annual July festival has a range of events and meals for every pocket. As usual, eating and drinking events are organized by the government's tourism agency and will be held in neighborhoods of the city-state's three principal ethnic groups: Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam. Many restaurants offer discounts.
Even foreign passengers in transit at the airport can show their passports to get vouchers to exchange for a particular dish. Cooking workshops, free samples, gorging competitions and food industry trade events are also standard features of the festival.
Indian, Chinese, Malay and Peranakan Foods
One of the most family-friendly events is the evening "food street." Running from July 17 to 25 in 2009, it will be held on Read Bridge is open daily 4pm to 11pm. In addition to Indian, Chinese and Malay foods, this year throughout the festival there will be an emphasis on Peranakan cuisine. On the evening of July 26 there will be an outdoor "longest Peranakan buffet line."
The Peranakan, also known as Straits Chinese, are descendents of Chinese male immigrants who, beginning in the 17th century, married local Malay women in what are now the nations of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. As more Chinese men arrived in the 19th and 20th century they tended to take brides from this community because so few Chinese women immigrated to the European colonies.
"Nyonya" food is just one aspect of this hybrid Chinese-Malay culture. Straits-Chinese also have, or had, distinctive clothing, furniture, jewelry and a hybrid Malay language. The culture, and the Baba Malay dialect in particular, has been thought to be dying out in Singapore (though it's much more robust in the Malaysian cities of Penang and Melaka) as the Straits Chinese intermarry more often with Chinese and Malays. But the Singapore government lately has been doing its best to bolster the Straits-Chinese by opening a Peranakan Museum in 2008. It's on Armenian Street, near the Stamford Center.
April's World Gourmet Summit
On the other hand, the World Gourmet Summit has recently been held over two weeks at the end of April, is intended for "foodies, Wine Enthusiasts, Business Travellers, Corporate Executives, Social Elites and Hospitality Professionals from around the region."
Name brand chefs from around the world conduct workshops, give talks and prepare meals for select few. At 12th outing of the extravaganza in 2009, these numbered Heinz Beck of Rome's La Pergola, Barcelona pastry master Oriol Balaguer, Atul Kochhar of London's Benares Restaurant , Hervé Boutin of Sydney's Le Cordon Bleu Institute and Klaus Erfort of Saarbrücken's GästeHaus Klaus Erfort, and Masayasu Yonemura of Yonemura in both Tokyo and Kyoto. The 2009 World Gourmet Summit's calendar of events provides a taste of the lavish proceedings.
Count on spending US $100 and on up for some of these events and make online reservations way ahead of time. Every festival also has special emphases: in 2009, for example, they were wine and pastry. However, there's alway an evening meal at the zoo, called "wildlife gourmet safari."
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