Ellice Handy My Favourite Recipes ● Observations from the First Singapore Food Cookbook

The cookbook My Favourite Recipes by Ellice Handy is a legend among Singapore chefs and home cooking enthusiasts. First published in 1952, most have read or at least heard about it. I recently borrowed a copy from the National Library, the eleventh edition published in 2012.

Ellice Handy (lady on the right) was born in Singapore in 1902. Ms Handy was an educator. She taught at Methodist Girls School and was appointed its first local born principal in 1948. Ms Handy published My Favourite Recipes in 1952 to help raise funds for new buildings at MGS. (Image courtesy of NAS.)

In 1953, Ms Handy hosted the visit of Mrs. Richard Nixon then Vice President of the United States of America to Methodist Girls School at Mount Sophia. (Image courtesy of NAS.)

Ms Handy retired in 1964 and moved to the Eastwood suburb of Adelaide, South Australia to live with her daughter. She passed away there in 1989 at age 87.

Ms Handy was 50 years old with four decades of cooking experience when she published My Favourite Recipes. Ms Handy started cooking at age 13 in MGS' kitchen to prepare lunches for teachers. She acknowledged her sifu (master) Mdm Lee Ling Neo, the matron of Chinese and Indian girls at MGS who taught her to make curries and sambal.

In her foreword, Ms Handy modestly professed herself a cooking enthusiast and made no claims to being a chef. The book is merely her personal collection of recipes from years in her kitchen with ideas from friends and gleaned from cookbooks. The recipes in the book have a homely warmth and feel to them.

To Ms Handy, cooking is for family and friends. It is a very personal, intimate thing, steeped in love and caring. Ms Handy said "imagination must go into the making of every dish" and encouraged readers to make changes to her recipes to suit their tastes.

She was doing what she loved till her death at age 87 in 1989.

A charming and even touching aspect of My Favourite Recipes to me is how it was a sincere effort that drew only on whatever limited resources Methodist Girls School could muster in the difficult times not long after the Second World War. No big budget, sponsors or grants but just a lot of love and can-do spirit.

The cover of My Favourite Recipes was designed in-house by the school's art teacher Mrs. Tan Yoong Thye. The pictures were drawn by 16 year old student Shirley Lim who was also known as Kim Lim.

Kim Lim went on to become a world renown sculptor based in London. She passed away at the relatively young age of 61 but her prints, sculptures and legacy are found in museums, private collections and public spaces around the world from Europe to North America and Asia, including National Gallery Singapore.

These hand drawn pictures are the earliest known published works of Kim Lim. I can feel the charm of a child's hand and eye in these pictures. So, part of Kim Lim's legacy is on the cover of the timeless My Favourite Recipes.

  

My Favourite Recipes became the school textbook for home economics / domestic science classes in Singapore schools. All students at that time, boys and girls included attended home economics classes (which I did too 🙋‍♂️ ).

Many of our parents and grandparents learned to cook with Ellice Handy's My Favourite Recipes. The first edition raised a princely sum of $10,000 for Methodist Girls School's building fund. (Image courtesy of NAS.)

Ms Handy's My Favourite Recipes is not the first cookbook published in Singapore. But, it is the first to present the full spectrum of food and techniques from across all the major local communities, thus reflecting Singapore food culture in its full glory. It is the first to define Singapore cuisine as a unified distinct entity despite its diversity.

My Favourite Recipes has chapters dedicated to European, Chinese, Malayan & Indonesian, and Indian food as well as cakes, pastries, desserts, and snacks. Ms Handy's cookbook stood out (and is a precious historical document today) as it was the first recipe book providing such extensive details of local dishes and ingredients in Singapore at that time.

There is, however, no separate chapter for Peranakan dishes. Peranakan dishes like kueh Pai Tee are listed in the Chinese chapter.

There is a chili crab recipe in the Chinese chapter known as "Steamed Crab with Chili Apricot Sauce". The chili sauce is poured over the steamed crabs or used as a dip. The crabs are neither sautéed nor stewed in the chili sauce.

This recipe pre-dates Palm Beach's chili crab which is widely credited with inventing the Singapore food icon. Palm Beach first sold their chili crab at a mobile stall at Bedok beach in 1956. More about the history of Singapore chili crab 👈 click

There is a recipe for Chicken Steamed in Salt but no Hainanese style poached chicken or chicken rice. I do remember that as a child in 1960s Singapore, salt baked or salt steamed chicken was much more prevalent than it is today.

I found this dish Pig Liver Balls most fascinating even though I have never heard or seen, let alone ate this before.

It is finely diced pork liver, ground pork and seasoning hand rolled into a ball, wrapped in pork caul and pan fried. I can only imagine how "sinfully" delicious it is 😋 I will You can try and make this 😄

Ms Handy has a dish attributed to her Majie 妈姐 Ah Foon - Beehoon Ah Foon's Style.

Majie 妈姐 which literally means "mother sister" were women domestic workers who came from China's Guangdong province to work in homes of wealthy families in Singapore and British Malaya. They keep house, cook and look after the children of their employers. (Majie are also referred to as Amah.)

When Majie left their hometown such as Shunde in their 20s, they were single and vowed never to marry. They combed their hair into a bun as a symbol of their vow of celibacy. Their plan was to earn money in Singapore / British Malaya to support their families back home, home which they intend to return to when they retire. 

Majie were very loyal to their employers, with whom they often forged lifelong bonds, especially with the children. Majie were also excellent home cooks and played essential roles in many a colonial officer or wealthy local's kitchen. (Image courtesy of NAS.)

(Digression: When Cantonese Majies arrived in Singapore in the 1920s, they displaced Hainanese cooks who worked in the homes of colonial officers and wealthy locals. Some of the jobless Hainanese cooks started their own businesses including giving birth to Singapore's kopitiam [coffee shop] culture. More about Hainanese influence on Singapore food culture here 👈 click )

Ms Handy said this Mango Fool can be found at Kandang Kerbau Market (today's Tekka market). Haven't seen this around these days, so got to make it at home with this recipe. (Image of Kandang Kerbau Market in 1971, courtesy of NAS.)

As mentioned, Ellice Handy's cooking is for family first (and friends). She has a recipe of her husband Dr. James T. N. Handy's favourite drink - Handy's Fruit Drink.

Handy Road which runs between today's Plaza Singapura and The Cathay cinema was named after Dr. Handy, Ellice Handy's husband. (Map of Singapore 1956 courtesy of NAS.)

There is a recipe attributed to the first principal and founder of Methodist Girls School who assigned Ellice Handy to the school kitchen thus setting her on the road to a lifelong connection with food - Sophia Blackmore's Jam Drops.

Sophia Blackmore taught Ellice Handy how to make these jam drops. Now we can make these jam drops and remember both Blackmore and Handy - food can serve as memorials just like monuments, statues, paintings, murals and other artefacts. (Image credit and more about Sophia Blackmore from Wikipedia.)

Side note: As Methodist Girls School was founded by Sophia Blackmore in 1887 and as it was located at Mount Sophia, it is often thought or assumed that Mount Sophia was named after Sophia Blackmore. This is incorrect. (Image courtesy of NAS.)

Mount Sophia was named after Stamford Raffles's second wife, Sophia Hull. The name Mount Sophia appeared in maps of Singapore from 1820s onwards. Sophia Blackmore arrived in Singapore much later in the 1880s. (Map of Singapore 1836, courtesy of NAS.)

On a side note: Sophia Road was also the birthplace of curry fish head, a truly Singaporean dish.

This was the simple chicken sandwich filling recipe which Sophia Blackmore tasked 13 year old Ellice Handy to make for MGS teachers back in 1915. Whose to know that this seemingly mundane assignment would one day lead to My Favourite Recipes, a gift to Singapore and a timeless legacy of Ellice Handy.

It reminds me that the most important step of any great endeavour is the first step, however small it may seem at first (paraphrasing Confucius lah....). I often tell myself, to know what lies ahead on the long windy road, just step forward to take a closer look and things often become self evident around the next turn.

Ms Handy attributed 6 recipes in the cakes / pastries / dessert chapter to Kwa. Ms Handy was obviously a big fan of Kwa though we don't known who Kwa was 🤔 🤷🏼‍♂️ 😄

There are many more recipes in the cookbook, over 300 actually. There's briani (biryani), mee rebus, otak-otak, banana cake, durian cake, scones, chendol, tapeh, babi tauyu, and more.

I will be referring to My Favourite Recipes often to get valuable snap shots of Singapore food of the 1950s. I would also try making some of the dishes. Please share your experience with these recipes and any insights or memories you have regarding this iconic Singapore cookbook.

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Written by Tony Boey on 11 Nov 2020 | Reviewed 30 Dec 2022