Over the years, Singapore’s hawker food culture has evolved tremendously: once rooted in the itinerant hawkers who plied the streets on foot or behind carts, or set up shop in temporary ‘villages’ of stalls, it now boasts an empire of clean, permanent hawker centres, breezily open-air or coolly air-conditioned, and is the focus of innumerable TV shows, print articles, and, of course, arguments over who cooks the best.

Time has not changed Singaporeans’ national obsession with street food, our love for the colourful cultures and cuisines that are its foundation: regional variations of Malay, Chinese, Indian and Nonya eats, as well as Western fare like chicken cutlets and chips, and unique flourishes like local coffee and tea – brewed in a muslin filter, foamed up not with an espresso-machine nozzle, but by being poured in sweeping arcs between two mugs.

Hawkers are the epitome of the enthusiastic, gung-ho Singaporean approach to life and food. The uncles and aunties who rise before the sun does, who spend hours prepping ingredients, standing behind flaming-hot woks, and patiently taking orders.