Musings for the meal.

A Teatime.

Theme: "Secret Garden"

Singapore has a steady number of farms in which visitors are permitted to directly buy their produce. Using locally harvested ingredients in this eating experience, the idea is to encourage audience to practice the locavore movement to achieve a healthier lifestyle. Through this experience, we also hope to raise the awareness of local farms in Singapore.

Meal Objective: 

To allow audience to experiment with their meal by creating their dishes using local ingredients as add-ons. In this way, the audience will learn how to best use the produce through cognitive learning.

Meal Flow:

Drinks

Light Salads

Sandwiches

Sweet and Savoury Pastries

Meal Selection:

In connection to a garden/farm theme, a "teatime" is preferred for its relation to garden appreciation over a meal. "Teatime" is also a quintessentially English practice, reflecting Singapore's colonial past. Dishes will also incorporate ingredients sourced from the particular farm the eating experience is held.

Vegetable Farm Listings

Situated in Kranji:

Bollywood Veggies

Kok Fah Farm

Kin Yan Agrotech

Fireflies Health Farm

Agro-Green Farm

Situated in Neo Tiew Road:

Green Circle Eco Farm

Situated in Khatib/NeeSoon:

Bottle Tree Park

Oh Chin Huat Hydroponics Farm

Inspire: Grow Your Own

This book by Adam Paterson and Santi Tonsukha contains all the information to get a vegetable garden started as well as the vegetable seeds needed. Produced as a pop-up book, its tone of voice approaches the topic of vegetables gardening and sustainable living in a fun way.

Images are taken from Paternson's website

Inspire: Postcarden

PostCarden was created to be more playful, curious and interactive. It encourages you to bond, live and grow the greeting on a day by day basis. Over time the card reacts to you and your environment evolving in beauty and charm.


Series of postcards that comes with a sachet of seeds. Once the postcard is built-up, the seeds are scatters into the designated areas. Recipient will then water the seeds and watch them grow~

Link: Postcarden

Inspire: Sprouts - Symbols to Cultivate Change

Sprout design a set of graphic icons designed to promote public consciousness towards a series of pressing environmental problems that the global community is facing today.

Series of icons in form of posters and stickers and installations

Inspire: Ceres Fair Food Branding

Education in terms of posters. Ideas for my own deliverables.

Ceres Fair Food Branding: Posters that chart out the food pathways. How food starts in the farm and ends up on your dish.

Straits Times Report: A Farmer's Life

Date: 20th November 2011
Journalist: Natasha Ann Zachariah

Extracts taken:

"Producers of locally grown food face shortages and an uncertain future.

The Government is pushing for more locally grown food, given the increasingly real threat of a global food crisis. However, farmers spoke to say their future is uncertain ,with land leases in limbo and a lack of workers due to the unattractiveness of farm work.

Signapore has about 180 farms producing fish, vegetables and eggs. Others mainly sell ornamental flowers or fish. Currently, Egg production stands at 23%, fish at 7% and leafy vegetables at 7%."

Dec 17th: Trip to Bollywood Veggies

Breakfast at Poison Ivy Bristro, where everything veg-related comes from their farm. They specialize in banana species. No bananas for our breakfast, but it was still lovely. 

Papaya Salad

Lemon Grass Tea

Moringa Tempura

Tapioca Chips

Rice

Although the layouts are pretty rough (walkways are vague), there is a wide variety of local vegetables and fruits grown here. I felt like an explorer. There's even a mini rice paddy field with their own irrigation canal

They do provide educational tours as well. But mostly one can get around alone, with plan information placed at the signboards of each plot. They do sell their vegetables as well, as well as cater to functions.

I can imagine the different combinations of vegetable and fruit recipes just from this one visit alone. Some people who tried Poison Ivy told me that their food was a tad bland. But I felt that it was much more refreshing to enjoy such meals, especially when it overlooks the farms.

An Inspiration for my menu: Imagine a glass of water with ice cubes made from watered down calamansi juice and honey. The ice will melt slowly, releasing the refreshing scent of calamansi and subtle sweetness of honey into the water. Crushed mint leaves can be added well as thin shavings of cucumber. The best part: Everything is local.

Kranji Countryside Association

Conceived in 2005 by a group of farm-preneurs who want to raise awareness about Singapore's rural North Western corner (where most local farms are situated). Their aims are to promote local agriculture and food production eco and agro-tourism, education, recreation and conservation.

Link: Kranji Countryside Association

Singapore: Organic Farming.

News article from wildsingapore news - Natural growth: Organic Farming in Singapore

Paragraph taken from the article (which probably sums up the idea i have):

"What are the benefits of supporting the efforts of these local farms? Well, aside from the fact that vegetables tended by Mother Nature are known for their flavour and for being healthier because they are untainted by chemicals, buying local organic produce means that less energy is spent delivering it to the customer.
Notes Mrs Eng-Lim: 'Organic is not just about growing healthy vegetables without pesticides and chemicals; it's also about reducing pollution while farming."


"Perhaps more realistically, the key to getting people to turn over a new (pesticide-free) leaf when they go grocery shopping - and realise the responsibility that they have to buy food that has been produced using sustainable and environmentally-friendly farming methods - lies in a gradual learning process, reckons chef Chiang."


To sum it up, educating the public works.

Singapore: Healthy Eating

The Singapore Health Promotion Board (HPB)

When it comes to food-related health programs, the HPB focused on six areas for their research:

1. Healthy Eating in Schools Programme (as of 2009, 87% of schools in Singapore have achieved)
2. Healthy Eating in Child Care Centres Programmes (established in 2005)

The above two focuses on educational institutions, which plays a part in shaping a child's eating habits. Hence, they seek to enhance the availability of healthier food and beverage choices in schools through an integrated programme involving teachers, canteen vendors and students.  These are done through coming up with guidelines on food quality through collaborations with nutritionists and dietitians.
Canteen vendors and caterers undergo culinary training to equip them with knowledge of healthy nutrition and culinary skills to prepare healthier meals. Briefings are also conducted for the School Canteen Committee to guide them in monitoring the food sold in schools.
In addition (for childcare centers), nutrition education is also taught in class.

3. Healthier Restaurant Programme
4. Healthier Catering Programme

The above focuses on giving diners a choice to customize their meals through 4 alternatives. currently there are more than 150 restaurants in Singapore which are participating in this programme.

5. Healthier Food Trail

HPB has organized food trails and talks on general healthy eating and wellness tours. Tours include stops at restaurants/eating places as well.

6. Healthier Choice Symbol Programme

Food that is endorsed with the Healthier Choice Symbol are those that have met the standard requirements of nutrition (healthier options). Taken this quote off the website:
"Seven in ten Singaporeans were found to be aware of the Healthier Choice Symbol (HCS) and 69% had used this symbol to assist them in making healthier food choices. "


if these doesn't point out a growing interest in health in Singapore i won't know what else would.

Local Hunt: Bollywood Veggies

Here is a well known farm in Singapore: Bollywood Veggies

Bollywood Veggies is run as sustainably as possible with no pesticides or fertilizers used on site, effectively making it an organic, planet-friendly operation. They also encourage Singaporeans to get back to nature, support local farmers and communities, think about sustainability, and enjoy a healthy lifestyle.


Their website for healthier eating

Project: Public Fruit Jam

As taken from their website:


Fallen Fruit invites the public to bring home-grown or street picked fruit and collaborate with us in making a collective fruit jams. Working without recipes, we ask people to sit with others they do not already know and negotiate what kind of jam to make: if I have lemons and you have figs, we’d make lemon fig jam (with lavender). Usually held in a gallery or museum, this event highlights the social and public nature of Fallen Fruit’s work, and we consider it a collaboration with the public as well as each other.

Photos are taken from their website =)

Project: Love Apples

Fallen Fruit is “an activist art project which started as a mapping of all the public fruit in our neighborhood... Our goal is to get people thinking about the life and vitality of our neighborhoods and to consider how we can change the dynamic of our cities and common values.”

Paragraph taken from Islands of Los Angeles website

Love Apples

"This project is an art-social experiment that explores how we can use available public space in a responsible and engaging manner to plant fruit bearing plants. The project re-imagines the use of available public space, which is central to both Fallen Fruit and Islands of LA. On May 5th, 2008, we began planting tomato plants on traffic islands in Los Angeles as an art experiment. David & Matias potted up the tomatoes for several weeks to allow them to grow some nice roots before being installed into the islands. Planting will continue for the next few weeks. On August 17 from 3-7pm we held a SALSA SALSA festival at Farmlab."

Images taken from various websites that featured Fallen Fruit's Love Apples / Salsa Salsa! Project.

Project: Colour Food

Another project by Marije Volgezang as she explores the concept of food and the significant of their colors.

Paragraph taken from her website:

"For a children’s clinic in New York, an investigation into colour and food. The basis for this investigation is the love-hate relationship children tend to have with food. Instead of approaching food as healthy-unhealthy it is viewed on the basis of colour. According to certain colour-teachings, red snacks stimulate confidence, yellow snacks stimulate friendship, black snacks stimulate discipline, etc."

Images are taken from her website

Project: Veggie Bling Bling.

A project done by Marije Volgezang to encourage children to eat their veggies. Project description as taken from her website below:

"A child’s mouth is like a rich toolbox. With these razor sharp tools and some everyday kitchen tools they can attack carrots, raddish, tomatoes and sweet peppers.

While making the bling-bling, lots of chewing and nibbling is going on. Psychological research states that children need to taste something 7 times before getting ajusted to a new flavour. Our model Juni (2,5) never liked carrots, but she did eat all her earrings! While playing with the vegetables, children make up new uses to decorate themselves and new stories come into being: ’I am an elf with elf-ears. So I need a magic wand!" And thus, a new wand is being nibbled."

all images are taken from her website.

make eating fun. let the experiencer be part of the design process.