Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Edward Williams remembers Sembawang Hills Estate Part 2

Today many families buy their fresh food from supermarkets. In the 60’s we got our meat, fish and vegetables from Hum Min who lived in the village at the back of our estate. Each morning he’d push his 3-wheel cart along the estate selling not only fresh meat but also some preserved foodstuffs like tan chye or chye poh. Everything you purchased was wrapped in old newspaper. My mother loved to haggle with Hum Min over his prices. It was a friendly “battle” between vendor and customer each day. Hum Min also operated on a credit system – all transactions were noted in a small notebook and payments were made at the end of the month.

Early one morning Hum Min was robbed by 2 knife-wielding men on his way to the market to buy fresh supplies. He suffered some cuts on his hand – I can’t remember how serious his injury was. After this incident Hum Min “retired”. It was a sad end to many years of service to our estate. However Hum Min still had his shop in the village. Occasionally my mother would send me on errands to buy sugar, msg (bee cheng) or salt from his village store.

Hum Min’s business was taken over by another villager. The new vendor drove a van around the estate with his fresh supplies, stopping at street corners for his morning trade. You could say that this was progress in the high tech direction – from pushing a 3-wheel cart to driving a van. I still miss Hum Min and his push cart. As a kid I particularly enjoyed it when he bent over to push the door of the cart open, to bring out more food stuffs. The inside of his cart always held some mysterious connotations for me. I’d strain my eyes to peer into the dark interior, to see what treasures were in store.

We had other street vendors touring the estate too. The knife and scissors sharpener who’d call out loudly “Chin char koh ah boh kar tay” as he pushed his bicycle along. The cockle shell (chee hum) man with a big basket on his bicycle, who walked bare footed in spite of the hot bitumen road. The ice cream and lollies van, the otak man with his nonya cakes. Otak is grilled fish in coconut leaf. There was also an Indian who carried his cakes (e.g. pakoras) and spicy nuts on a circular tray balanced on his head. At night the mee goreng, satay and chestnut (kow luck) vendors paid us regular visits. The satay man lived in Old Upper Thomson Road. The mee goreng seller parked his cart on the street and knocked his wok with the frying spade to signal his presence. I always enjoyed watching them cook. In the early 60’s we even had a “fish and chips” van that toured the estate. This business was run by a family in Jalan Rukam. It didn’t last long though. It was probably geared towards the British servicemen and their families in the estate.

Related post: Itinerant food vendors of yesteryears

9 comments:

Brian and Tess said...

Edward, yes very likely that a fish and chip van would be targetted at British service families. I never saw one during my time at Changi in the early sixties, somehow the climate seems wrong for such a dish but if you visited the UK one thing you would find a lot of are fish and chip shops - so common are they that its not unusual to find some of them run by the Chinese community so that fish and chips are sold along the usual Chinese dishes (or rather so-called Chinese dishes) that are common on the high streets here

peter said...

Have to agree with Edward about the fish and chip van which was usually targetted at the british Servicemen fmailies - saw many in my estate in the ealry 1960s. The van had a big opening with a flip-up roof (actually the van panel)secured by a metal rod.

The beautiful of fish & chip was the wonderful aroma when the fish was deep fried. Then it was wrapped on those cake-making paper and then a news paper. Usually cost S$1 in those days. So nice that I took at least 2 hours to finish, each time taking a small bit. Once cold no longer can get that nice aroma.

Like I had said in an article on Chun See's blog, my first experience with ang mo food was free fish & chip from those AA gunners in 1964.

Victor said...

Peter, if you took 2 hours to finish the fish and chips, wouldn't it be cold and no longer nice?

Zen said...

In early sixties my boss was sent on a business trip to the UK and came back saying to his friends that it was a good idea to open fast food joints in Singapore. Everyone laughed at him saying that he carried his imagination a bit too far. However, when one brave local guy brought in the first Mcdonald outlet to Liat Tower orchard road, it was this gentleman laughing his way to the bank.

Edward said...

Hi All,

The only fish and chips I ever ate was in Upper Thomson Road, near the corner of Mandai Road. This area was then known as Nee Soon. The fish and chips was really yummy, especially with tomato sauce.

Edward

peter said...

true victor what u say. So "cheap thrill" = eat the batter first leaving the white fish meatlast. I think the aroma came from rich butter and tiger beer in the mixture for cooking. Some fish& chip sold at Long John Silver cannot emulate the same taste.

Most times i eat without seasoning like mayonaise or tomato catchup. Spoil the taste.

peter said...

when i am in england, die-die must head for those outskirt small towns to look for fish & chip. The small shops sell quite good quality ones except you buy over the shop window and head to a park or somewhere and sit down to eat. "Finger-licking good" and not with fork and knife. Sometimes when I do this way, I think back to the 1960s when I had to "beg" for fish & chip. Seems I came a long way.

Zen said...

One of my office girls who had a brother-in-law doing this type mobile van business, catering to british naval service men stationing in Sembawang. He saved enough money either to buy a landed property or invest his saving in gold (a popular buy at that time), and chose the latter. Obviously he made a wrong choice, when property prices kept on increasing. Because of this, he had to face an ever nagging wife.

Tom said...

Tom Said ...
I like my Fish and chips , there is a wee shop 12 miles from where I live, and it sells lovely Fish suppers, some times I make my own , And for the Lads that dont know how to make a fish suppers, all you need is a few potatoes, and two nice thick pieces of fish, and then peel the potatoes,and cut into small strips , wash your chips in warm water to eliminate some of the starch and dry well before dipping them in hot fat or oil that way they wont stick to gether and will be nice and crispy,and how to make the batter you will need 250g, sifted flour ,pinch of salt,two tablespoonsof olive oil or melted butter, two eggs, one glass(400ml.)of water or milk or beer, then mix all the ingredients in a bowl, except the white of egg and leave to stand for at least two hours, to allow the ferrmentation to start, and add the two stiffly beaten egg white to the batter before useing , and you will have the best made fish and chips in Singapore and it wont take you two hours to eat it , ha ha