SINGAPORE — What if preserving Singapore’s food heritage is not simply about keeping old recipes alive, but making sure people can still see themselves in the stories behind those dishes?
That is the idea driving Sendok Rakyat, a community food platform founded by married couple Anugerah Murni Sabta and Aqid Aiman Azmi, who are turning cooking workshops, food walks and shared meals into opportunities to explore Singapore’s identity, culture and sense of belonging.
The name Sendok Rakyat translates roughly to “the people’s ladle.” Its approach is deliberately grassroots: rather than treating heritage food as something locked in museums or reserved for special occasions, the couple wants people to experience it through everyday cooking, markets and conversations.
From nasi ulam to a bigger conversation
One example is Sendok Rakyat’s nasi ulam workshop, where participants work with herbs and ingredients such as kemangi, Thai basil, mint, coriander, kaffir lime leaves, daun kaduk and torch ginger.
But the goal is not simply to teach participants a supposedly “correct” recipe.
Instead, the ingredients become a starting point for conversations about family, memory and identity: Which herbs did their grandparents use? Does a particular smell remind them of home? Have they ever cooked the dish themselves?
That distinction is important because Singapore’s food culture has never been completely static.
Dishes such as laksa, mee soto, mee goreng and rojak reflect generations of culinary interaction and exchange. Sendok Rakyat’s programmes therefore explore Malay food while also looking at the ways different traditions have influenced one another over time.
A food story shaped by inequality
For Anugerah, the subject is deeply personal.
As a teenager, she lived in a transitional shelter, where food often depended on donated supplies, canned ingredients and whatever could be prepared through a community kitchen.
Yet some of her strongest memories of being cared for came from the traditional dishes her mother and grandmother prepared when they had the time, money and ingredients.
That experience eventually shaped an important question for Sendok Rakyat: Who actually gets access to food heritage?
Traditional cooking can require considerable time, money, equipment and ingredients. That can unintentionally make heritage food feel like something reserved for people with the resources to recreate elaborate recipes.
Sendok Rakyat challenges that idea.
For Anugerah, even adapting a traditional dish with inexpensive or convenient ingredients does not necessarily make the resulting food meaningless. The memories, effort and feeling attached to the meal can be part of its authenticity too.
Heritage doesn’t have to mean doing everything the old way
This may be the most interesting part of their approach.
Sendok Rakyat does not necessarily define heritage as perfectly reproducing an old recipe from scratch.
Its activities include food storytelling sessions, walking tours, cooking workshops, picnics and visits to local markets, including pasars in Geylang, Chong Pang, Bukit Gombak and Tekka.
The couple sees these markets as living cultural spaces rather than frozen reminders of Singapore’s past.
People still shop there. Families still eat there. Communities still meet there.
And that means food heritage is not something that simply happened generations ago — it is something Singaporeans continue to create and reshape today.
Part of a bigger movement to protect Singapore’s food identity
Sendok Rakyat is not working in isolation.
In March 2026, CNA reported on Museum of Food, a nonprofit initiative founded by Emily Yeo and Yeo Min that also seeks to reconnect Singaporeans with local culinary heritage through recipes, artefacts, workshops and education.
The founders observed that many people can confidently cook international favourites but may be less familiar with traditional Singaporean ingredients, techniques and recipes.
Other communities are also finding new ways to preserve food traditions.
CNA reported in 2025 on minority ethnic communities using online food businesses and heritage events to keep lesser-known traditional dishes alive and introduce them to wider audiences. One example involved an Orang Laut family preserving coastal food traditions connected to Singapore’s maritime past.
Meanwhile, Singapore’s broader hawker culture continues to face questions about succession, changing consumer tastes and whether younger generations will continue the trade.
CNA’s reporting on hawker culture has highlighted the challenge of preserving not just the food itself, but the people, skills and livelihoods behind it.
The bigger question: What does “authentic” really mean?
Perhaps Sendok Rakyat’s most powerful message is that food heritage cannot survive if people are made to feel that they are not qualified to participate in it.
A traditional dish can carry family history.
A market can preserve community memory.
A modified recipe can still represent someone’s experience.
And a simple shared meal can open conversations about identity and belonging.
That is why the work of Sendok Rakyat goes beyond cooking classes.
It asks Singaporeans to look at their food differently — not simply as something to eat, but as a record of where communities came from, how they lived, how they adapted and how they continue to change.
And if Singapore’s food heritage is to survive into the next generation, perhaps the most important ingredient is not a secret spice or an old recipe.
It is making sure everyone feels that the story belongs to them, too.
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