We love our food but do we really know where our favourite dishes come from? Or how our forefathers – or foremothers, most likely – sourced and prepared them? Emily Yeo and Yeo Min want Singaporeans to learn these facts and more from their Museum of Food.
The two friends got to know each other as they shared a publisher. Emily Yeo is the author of The Little Book Of Singapore Food Illustrated cookbook, while Yeo Min wrote Chinese Pastry School, which features key techniques and recipes.
Both women, who were hosting cooking workshops separately, got together to collaborate on heritage recipes. The response was so encouraging that they set up Museum of Food as a non-profit in 2024.
But they didn’t just want to teach others how to cook. They wanted to plug the gap in Singaporeans’ culinary heritage.
“We realised that Singaporeans can make tiramisus, brownies and pizzas but when we toss them an ang ku kueh recipe, for example, they don’t know what they’re supposed to do with it,” Emily Yeo said.
Added Yeo Min: “It’s very common for Singaporeans to know their chutoro (medium-fat tuna belly) and otoro (fatty tuna belly) but then they go to a wet market and don’t know what ikan parang (wolf herring) looks like.”
Museum of Food isn’t a typical museum that holds exhibitions and curates specific collections. It operates as a tool to educate people about Singapore’s culinary heritage, sharing recipes while explaining how they were made in the past, including the tools used.
Their first pop-up was a series of heritage food workshops at Baker X at Orchard Central in late 2024. Held over two months, this was the first rendition of the museum, with their artefact collection on display, while they served up heritage-inspired bakes and held workshops with different partners.
They then continued running workshops at partner locations, with schools, corporations and community groups, all while acquiring more artefacts.
At the end of 2025, the friends decided it was time to find a home for their museum “to increase our reach and do more meaningful work”, said Yeo Min.
Emily Yeo shared that they’ve rented a second-floor space at 102 Joo Chiat Road and will open in mid-April. The venue will operate on a by-appointment basis, and house the museum’s collection and offer space for workshops.
There are currently around 100 items in their collection, including kueh moulds, a murukku or putu mayam press, an ice-shaving machine, a roti jala cup, and a cendol sieve, through which thick rice dough is pushed to form the stringy strands we see in the dessert. Their oldest cookbook, Singapore Municipality Gas Department Cookery Book, is from 1938.
Items in the museum’s collection come from donations from friends, vintage stores and online purchases – the large item pictured here is a food carrier used in the 1900s. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Interesting pieces include a grain sampler, a tool that pierced through gunny sacks to bring out a small sample for quality checks, and a coolie hook, which gave coolies better grip and leverage when swinging gunny sacks over their shoulder.
One item that gets a lot of interest is a food carrier used in the early to mid-1900s. A portable lamp hung off the side of the carrier and containers which held condiments and cutlery were stored in the top basket.
Their items come from a range of sources. “We’re quite good at shopping,” Yeo Min laughed.
Emily Yeo received a few items from a grandaunt, and friends donated some. They purchased a lot of artefacts from vintage shop By My Old School. In fact, its second-generation owner, Rebecca Wong, has become a good friend and contacts the duo whenever she has new food-related artefacts in her shop.
Emily Yeo was an early childhood educator and wants children to discover the joy of cooking and not miss out on being in the kitchen. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Yeo Min described their workshops
The 30-year-old said bringing in artefacts related to the recipe helps participants make a deeper connection to the food.
“So if they’re making kueh and see the kueh moulds that were used in the past, they know how it has been a part of Singapore for decades. They start to develop more curiosity about it – there’s more excitement,” she said.
Added Emily Yeo: “We try to bring out as much flavour and meaning to each dish that they make.”
Murukku, a savoury Indian snack, gets its spiral shape from this tool. Firm dough is fitted into the tube and the press then extrudes it through the other end. (Photo: Museum of Food)
In one of Museum of Food’s workshops, participants made various types of sambal from vintage cookbooks. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Vintage cookbooks, which showcase various cuisines and cooking styles from Singapore’s past. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Sessions with children are particularly special for Emily Yeo. The mum-of-four revealed she never could cook as she grew up with a helper in her household.
She dabbled in the kitchen when she went to university – “I had a few accidents in the school pantry” – and got a degree in accountancy but later moved into early childhood education.
“I asked my six-year-old students to draw a chicken and they drew a drumstick; it was quite dire,” said the 39-year-old. “I was very worried about the children growing up like me, never stepping in the kitchen.”
For kids’ workshops, the women make their own child-safe play dough, infused with spices, for little ones to craft their versions of local snacks such as kueh bangkit and murukku. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Children get to see the moulds used to make kueh at these workshops. (Photo: Museum of Food)
She then started a business, The Little Things, to get children into the kitchen through baking and cooking classes.
“In a world of YouTube shorts where we just keep scrolling, to sit down and work on an egg tart … is becoming increasingly rare,” Emily Yeo said.
“I want that so much for my children and for everyone else – to shut out the world for a while, focus on the task at hand and enjoy it.”
Yeo Min, on the other hand, has a special bond with their older clientele. She has a degree in social work and early in her career
But she found the work “very heavy for a (then) 23-year-old”. So, she went to pastry school, enrolling at At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy in Singapore.
Yeo Min has a background in social work and integrates techniques from that field when organising food heritage sessions for seniors. (Photo: Museum of Food)
There, she met Chef Pang Nyuk Yoon, now 74, with whom the Museum of Food works with.
“She has a whole world of knowledge I can’t find on Google,” said Yeo Min. “She has seen a Singapore that we haven’t – she talks about climbing trees to pluck bamboo leaves to wrap her bak chang (rice dumplings) with.”
The Museum of Food is building a chef community, who co-lead workshops and serve as consultants or guides. For example, when an American agriculture company reached out to learn more about Singapore’s local produce, the museum engaged chef partners to share their knowledge and bring these guests to local markets.
When workshops are organised for seniors through community groups, the two friends take the opportunity to chat with participants to find out more about Singapore’s food history, recipes and tools.
“Sometimes, the seniors will leave us a recipe, a home-cooked dish with no name that you’ll never find elsewhere. Or we hear about their favourite soy sauce brands, for example,” said Yeo Min. “We promise them that their stories will live on through the museum.”
The women transcribe these interviews or jot down key points and re-tell these stories at their events. They are also working on moving them to a digital platform that can be easily accessed by anyone.
Yeo Min believes each generation has a responsibility to ensure that their recipes get passed down to future ones.
“If I were to spend all my life gathering these recipes and refining my craft, but not share this knowledge with younger generations, then it’ll be my fault if a heritage dish dies with me,” she added.
Yeo Min (left) and Emily Yeo have been operating Museum of Food as a mobile museum but will soon have a space to call their own in Joo Chiat. (Photo: Museum of Food)
She hopes Singapore’s culinary experts will be more open in sharing their recipes and food knowledge, to help people better understand what goes into local dishes.
Yeo Min said that people in Singapore are willing to pay for croissants, cakes and macarons because they generally understand the processes behind these recipes. But not so, local snacks.
“Tau sar piah (pastry with a mung bean filling) is priced at S$1.20 to S$1.50 per piece and price increases are often met with backlash,” she said. “If more people knew how hard it is to make, we would value it more and willingly pay more for it.”
Emily Yeo added: “Museum of Food wants to tell a full story and invite people into that story, and for them to write their own stories by making their own memories with food.”
She told CNA Women about workshop participants who did just that. A mother and son who spent an afternoon making fishballs at one of their workshops now always recall that experience with laughs and smiles as they eat fishball noodles.
A senior who made kuih nagasari (Indonesian/Malay steamed cake made with rice flour and bananas) while fondly remembering her own mother being an excellent baker.
Emily Yeo added: “Everyone’s encounter with the dish at their hands changes them a little. Making the food carves a new memory, a new food story. And thereafter, we relate to the dish differently.”
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.
Continue reading...
The two friends got to know each other as they shared a publisher. Emily Yeo is the author of The Little Book Of Singapore Food Illustrated cookbook, while Yeo Min wrote Chinese Pastry School, which features key techniques and recipes.
Both women, who were hosting cooking workshops separately, got together to collaborate on heritage recipes. The response was so encouraging that they set up Museum of Food as a non-profit in 2024.
But they didn’t just want to teach others how to cook. They wanted to plug the gap in Singaporeans’ culinary heritage.
“We realised that Singaporeans can make tiramisus, brownies and pizzas but when we toss them an ang ku kueh recipe, for example, they don’t know what they’re supposed to do with it,” Emily Yeo said.
Added Yeo Min: “It’s very common for Singaporeans to know their chutoro (medium-fat tuna belly) and otoro (fatty tuna belly) but then they go to a wet market and don’t know what ikan parang (wolf herring) looks like.”
Museum of Food isn’t a typical museum that holds exhibitions and curates specific collections. It operates as a tool to educate people about Singapore’s culinary heritage, sharing recipes while explaining how they were made in the past, including the tools used.
Their first pop-up was a series of heritage food workshops at Baker X at Orchard Central in late 2024. Held over two months, this was the first rendition of the museum, with their artefact collection on display, while they served up heritage-inspired bakes and held workshops with different partners.
They then continued running workshops at partner locations, with schools, corporations and community groups, all while acquiring more artefacts.
ARTEFACTS THAT CONNECT TO THE PAST
At the end of 2025, the friends decided it was time to find a home for their museum “to increase our reach and do more meaningful work”, said Yeo Min.
Emily Yeo shared that they’ve rented a second-floor space at 102 Joo Chiat Road and will open in mid-April. The venue will operate on a by-appointment basis, and house the museum’s collection and offer space for workshops.
There are currently around 100 items in their collection, including kueh moulds, a murukku or putu mayam press, an ice-shaving machine, a roti jala cup, and a cendol sieve, through which thick rice dough is pushed to form the stringy strands we see in the dessert. Their oldest cookbook, Singapore Municipality Gas Department Cookery Book, is from 1938.
Items in the museum’s collection come from donations from friends, vintage stores and online purchases – the large item pictured here is a food carrier used in the 1900s. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Interesting pieces include a grain sampler, a tool that pierced through gunny sacks to bring out a small sample for quality checks, and a coolie hook, which gave coolies better grip and leverage when swinging gunny sacks over their shoulder.
One item that gets a lot of interest is a food carrier used in the early to mid-1900s. A portable lamp hung off the side of the carrier and containers which held condiments and cutlery were stored in the top basket.
Their items come from a range of sources. “We’re quite good at shopping,” Yeo Min laughed.
Emily Yeo received a few items from a grandaunt, and friends donated some. They purchased a lot of artefacts from vintage shop By My Old School. In fact, its second-generation owner, Rebecca Wong, has become a good friend and contacts the duo whenever she has new food-related artefacts in her shop.
Emily Yeo was an early childhood educator and wants children to discover the joy of cooking and not miss out on being in the kitchen. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Yeo Min described their workshops
The 30-year-old said bringing in artefacts related to the recipe helps participants make a deeper connection to the food.
“So if they’re making kueh and see the kueh moulds that were used in the past, they know how it has been a part of Singapore for decades. They start to develop more curiosity about it – there’s more excitement,” she said.
Added Emily Yeo: “We try to bring out as much flavour and meaning to each dish that they make.”
Murukku, a savoury Indian snack, gets its spiral shape from this tool. Firm dough is fitted into the tube and the press then extrudes it through the other end. (Photo: Museum of Food)
In one of Museum of Food’s workshops, participants made various types of sambal from vintage cookbooks. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Vintage cookbooks, which showcase various cuisines and cooking styles from Singapore’s past. (Photo: Museum of Food)
ENCOURAGING CHILDREN TO ENTER THE KITCHEN
Sessions with children are particularly special for Emily Yeo. The mum-of-four revealed she never could cook as she grew up with a helper in her household.
She dabbled in the kitchen when she went to university – “I had a few accidents in the school pantry” – and got a degree in accountancy but later moved into early childhood education.
“I asked my six-year-old students to draw a chicken and they drew a drumstick; it was quite dire,” said the 39-year-old. “I was very worried about the children growing up like me, never stepping in the kitchen.”
For kids’ workshops, the women make their own child-safe play dough, infused with spices, for little ones to craft their versions of local snacks such as kueh bangkit and murukku. (Photo: Museum of Food)
Children get to see the moulds used to make kueh at these workshops. (Photo: Museum of Food)
She then started a business, The Little Things, to get children into the kitchen through baking and cooking classes.
“In a world of YouTube shorts where we just keep scrolling, to sit down and work on an egg tart … is becoming increasingly rare,” Emily Yeo said.
“I want that so much for my children and for everyone else – to shut out the world for a while, focus on the task at hand and enjoy it.”
SENIORS AS UNOFFICIAL CONSULTANTS
Yeo Min, on the other hand, has a special bond with their older clientele. She has a degree in social work and early in her career
But she found the work “very heavy for a (then) 23-year-old”. So, she went to pastry school, enrolling at At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy in Singapore.
Yeo Min has a background in social work and integrates techniques from that field when organising food heritage sessions for seniors. (Photo: Museum of Food)
There, she met Chef Pang Nyuk Yoon, now 74, with whom the Museum of Food works with.
“She has a whole world of knowledge I can’t find on Google,” said Yeo Min. “She has seen a Singapore that we haven’t – she talks about climbing trees to pluck bamboo leaves to wrap her bak chang (rice dumplings) with.”
The Museum of Food is building a chef community, who co-lead workshops and serve as consultants or guides. For example, when an American agriculture company reached out to learn more about Singapore’s local produce, the museum engaged chef partners to share their knowledge and bring these guests to local markets.
When workshops are organised for seniors through community groups, the two friends take the opportunity to chat with participants to find out more about Singapore’s food history, recipes and tools.
“Sometimes, the seniors will leave us a recipe, a home-cooked dish with no name that you’ll never find elsewhere. Or we hear about their favourite soy sauce brands, for example,” said Yeo Min. “We promise them that their stories will live on through the museum.”
The women transcribe these interviews or jot down key points and re-tell these stories at their events. They are also working on moving them to a digital platform that can be easily accessed by anyone.
MAKING YOUR OWN FOOD STORIES
Yeo Min believes each generation has a responsibility to ensure that their recipes get passed down to future ones.
“If I were to spend all my life gathering these recipes and refining my craft, but not share this knowledge with younger generations, then it’ll be my fault if a heritage dish dies with me,” she added.
Yeo Min (left) and Emily Yeo have been operating Museum of Food as a mobile museum but will soon have a space to call their own in Joo Chiat. (Photo: Museum of Food)
She hopes Singapore’s culinary experts will be more open in sharing their recipes and food knowledge, to help people better understand what goes into local dishes.
Yeo Min said that people in Singapore are willing to pay for croissants, cakes and macarons because they generally understand the processes behind these recipes. But not so, local snacks.
“Tau sar piah (pastry with a mung bean filling) is priced at S$1.20 to S$1.50 per piece and price increases are often met with backlash,” she said. “If more people knew how hard it is to make, we would value it more and willingly pay more for it.”
Emily Yeo added: “Museum of Food wants to tell a full story and invite people into that story, and for them to write their own stories by making their own memories with food.”
She told CNA Women about workshop participants who did just that. A mother and son who spent an afternoon making fishballs at one of their workshops now always recall that experience with laughs and smiles as they eat fishball noodles.
A senior who made kuih nagasari (Indonesian/Malay steamed cake made with rice flour and bananas) while fondly remembering her own mother being an excellent baker.
Emily Yeo added: “Everyone’s encounter with the dish at their hands changes them a little. Making the food carves a new memory, a new food story. And thereafter, we relate to the dish differently.”
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.
Continue reading...