Hokkien style bak kut teh which has not changed much from the time it was created for coolies in Singapore looks dark and tastes herbal.
Singapore Hokkien bak kut teh doesn't look very different from the herbal pork rib soup found in Fujian and Taiwan. In Taiwan, herbal pork rib soup is a popular street food dish just like bak kut teh in Singapore and Malaysia.
The best known Chinese herbal soup is perhaps 十全大补汤 which literally means "complete ten herbs grand tonic soup".
The ten herbs are:
党参 Codonopsis
白术 Atractylodes
茯苓 Poria cocos
炙甘草 Liquorice
当归 Angelica
川芎 Ligusticum striatum
白芍 Paeoniae alba
炙黄芪 Astragalus
肉桂 Cinnamomum cassia.
The "complete ten herbs grand tonic soup" is a combination of two prescriptions, one is 四君子汤 or "four gentlemen soup" and the other is 四物汤 or "four elements soup".
Four gentlemen soup consists of 人参 ginseng or 党参 codonopsis, 白术 atractylodes, 茯苓 poria cocos, and 甘草 liquorice. Taking "four gentlemen soup" increases energy, improves stamina and counters fatigue.
Four elements soup consists of 当归 angelica, 川芎 ligusticum striatum, 白芍 paeoniae alba, and 熟地黄 rehmannia glutinosa. Four herbs soup improves blood circulation, regenerates blood, and support recovery from injuries.
Two more herbs 炙黄芪 astragalus and 肉桂 cinnamomum cassia complete the ten herbs grand tonic soup.
十全大补汤 goes back at least a thousand years to the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279). At the orders of the emperor, the Bureau of People’s Welfare Pharmacy published China's first nation wide compilation of medical prescriptions known as 太平惠民和剂局方 which literally means Prescriptions of Bureau of People’s Welfare Pharmacy. The authoritative compilation published in 1148 contained many prescriptions which are still in use today, including 十全大补汤.
Chinese indentured labourers or coolies came to British Malaya mainly between 1820 and 1920. They worked at the booming plantations, mines and ports of British Malaya. Overworked and malnourished, the coolies suffered many physical ailments. They also suffered the effects of opium addiction including lack of energy which threatened their livelihood which depended on hard labour.
A herbal soup named bak kut teh was concocted to soothe the coolies' pains and increase energy.
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| Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore |
There are no records of exactly when or who created bak kut teh - it could be a street medicine peddler, a Chinese medical hall herbalist or a traditional Chinese physician.
Whomever it might be (a statue should be made to honour him), he would have drawn inspiration from the thousand years of healing traditions and practices deeply embedded in Chinese culture and heritage.
We don't have the original bak kut teh recipe and so have to rely on contemporary herbal bak kut teh. The Hokkien style of bak kut teh is likely as close as we can get to the original bak kut teh today as it hasn't changed much in the last century.
Unlike 十全大补汤, Hokkien bak kut teh contains not only medicinal herbs but also spices and soy sauce.
The herbs in a typical Hokkien bak kut teh recipe today include:
当归 Dang Shen (Codonopsis pilosula)
炙甘草 Gan Cao (Glycyrrhiza uralensis)
当归 Dang Gui (Angelica sinensis)
川芎 Chuan Xiong (Ligusticum wallichii)
黄芪 Huang Qi (Astragalus propinquus)
玉竹 Yuzhu (Polygonatum odoratum)
枸杞 Wolfberries
Five out of seven herbs in this recipe are in common with 十全大补汤, hence the grand old herbal soup was likely a reference for the unknown creator of bak kut teh.
Where bak kut teh differs from 十全大补汤 is the heavier use of spices while the original 十全大补汤 recipe only has cinnamon.
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| Singapore River 1905. Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore |
Singapore has long been a centre of trade between Europe, Arabia, India and China, with spices as one of the main goods passing through here since the time of Sang Nila Utama's Singapura (founded 1299). Naturally, spices found their way into the herbal tonic for Chinese coolies.
In bak kut teh, there are typically:
White & black peppercorn
Star Anise
Cinnamon
Cloves
Fennel seed
The combination of Chinese medicinal herbs and spices from India and the Malay archipelago make bak kut teh a uniquely Nanyang dish.
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| Courtesy of Flickr |
Dark soya sauce is key in Hokkien bak kut teh. It is dark soy sauce that gives Hokkien bak kut teh its dark, often pitch black colour, whereas the dark colour in 十全大补汤 comes mainly from 熟地黄 rehmannia glutinosa.
Garlic preferably old garlic is also essential in bak kut teh recipe.
Only pork bones with little meat were used as that was all the poor coolies could afford at that time. Bone marrow was valued as it helps strengthen joints.
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| Nankin Street Bak Kut Teh |
Today, herbal bak kut teh is a disappearing dish. Only a small handful of stalls still offer Hokkien bak kut teh in Singapore and they are all in their last legs with no successor in sight.
They have been edged out by peppery bak kut teh sold by Teochew hawkers. The shift from herbal to peppery likely took place from around the 1950s.
By that time, Singapore was prospering. Coolies were better fed and suffered less from the pains of overwork and exhaustion. By then towkays (bosses) also acquired a taste for bak kut teh. Teochew hawkers started to tone down the herbs in their bak kut teh and upped the use of spices, especially peppercorn. Better cuts of pork were also used in peppery bak kut teh.
Today, peppery bak kut teh is synonymous with Singapore bak kut teh while herbal bak kut teh is fading away and may not be around in the next generation.
When I was a child in the 1970s in PJ, Selangor, I knew of an old licensed opium smoker, probably one of the very few last ones still surviving then, who was an employee of my father. He was a carpenter, and used to build wooden furniture for our house. He must have been in his 60s then but was still as hale as a horse, although very skinny. He would work hard, and during his breaks, would pull out his old opium pipe, plug it with dry opium resin, light up and for a while, will be on his high. I can still remember the opium smoke, which was a sickly sweet smell, unlike tobacco. I later found out that the British actually licensed opium smokers, and even after Merdeka, and strict drug laws with death penalties, licensed opium smokers were exempted from these laws, and could lawfully purchased their opium from government hospitals. Of course, no opium licences were issued after Merdeka in 1957, but it was an interesting hangover from the two Opium Wars that the British fought against China in the 19th Century.
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