I have noticed that some of my longest friendships can be traced through food.Not necessarily through memorable restaurants or expensive dinners, but through the small meals that happened almost without planning.
A packet of fries after school. A plate of noodles shared between friends. A late-night supper when nobody was particularly hungry, but nobody wanted to go home either.
When I was younger, food was often the easiest reason to meet someone. We did not always have much to talk about before sitting down. Somehow, once something arrived in front of us, the conversation followed.
I still find that happening now.
I can meet a friend after months apart and the first question is often, “Where should we eat?” It sounds practical, but there is something more underneath it. Choosing food together gives us a reason to return to one another.
I think about the friends who introduced me to dishes I would never have ordered myself. Some of those foods have remained favourites, partly because the taste brings back the person who first insisted I try them.
Food has a way of recording these relationships without us realizing it. A particular stall becomes associated with a certain period of life. A dish becomes something we only order when a particular friend is around. Even the argument over what to eat becomes part of the memory.
Perhaps friendship and food endure for the same reason: neither needs a grand occasion to matter.
Sometimes all it takes is a message asking if you have eaten.
And perhaps that is why I keep returning to Singapore’s food stories, because somewhere among the dishes and neighbourhoods are the people who gave those meals meaning in the first place. If you feel like exploring more of these everyday food stories with me, you can find them over at Town Eats SG.
