A Woman's Mission to Revive Traditional Chinese Candy

After quitting her civil service job to become a pastry chef, Yeo Min decided to focus on preserving traditional Chinese candy when she realised the tradition was dying, even in the syllabus of the pastry school . In this episode, she talks about her journey to making traditional Chinese candy, writing the book Chinese Pastry School and founding the Museum of Food.

Yeo Min is a pastry chef, a chef instructor and the author of Chinese Pastry School (2024). In 2021, she was a finalist of the Channel 8 baking competition “Crème De La Crème” and came in second at the World Gourmet Summit Apprentice Chef Competition 2021. She is the co-founder of Museum of Food.

What Yeo Min Talked About02:33 – Why Yeo Min is passionate about preserving traditional Chinese candy03:40 – Childhood influence03:47 – The three candies representing past, present and future06:58 – Vanishing street candy11:08 – Ding ding tang and the future of traditional candy15:07 – Homemade vs store-bought maltose16:57 – Childhood memories of traditional candy18:44 – Traditional Chinese candy versus Western confectionery22:02 – Sugar sculptures in Chinese culture25:06 – Why Yeo Min wrote Chinese Pastry School42:10 – The Museum of Food and its mission50:51 – Yeo Min’s next book53:47 – Food heritage

Transcript and ResourcesRead the transcript: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/podcast-a-woman-s-mission-to-revive-traditional-chinese-candyWatch Yeo Min make traditional Chinese candy: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/video-traditional-chinese-candy

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This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music “Di Tanjong Katong” was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Yeo Min for coming on the show.

Produced by the National Library Singapore, the BiblioAsia Podcast tells stories about Singapore history.