Sarah Huang Benjamin
For our first anniversary, we have the privilege of TV host, chef and food writer Sarah Huang Benjamin sharing her life with us.
Interviewed by Maria & Felicia
15-20 mins read
Felicia (F): Which chef(s) has had the biggest impact on your life? And what is your biggest inspiration for creative work?
Sarah (S): Nigella (Lawson) is awesome. She was a big inspiration growing up and she is also a writer first and foremost. I like the way she uses the English language and how deft she is with her words.
Cookbooks featured a lot in my childhood. So I have this cookbook called “The Food Around the World.” It features some countries’ recipes. I used to cook with the recipes in it with my dad on weekends and it felt like travelling the world through food. I really fell in love with food then and I started a terrible habit of collecting cookbooks. I like cookbooks that tell stories, not just merely instructional, or just talk about the food. It’s important that I can engage with the recipe and understand why the person wants to write this particular recipe and what’s the story behind it.
I had some sort of an identity crisis in my younger years. People in Singapore would identify me as an ‘ang mo’, which was ironic because I could speak Mandarin and I watched Chinese drama serials growing up. I always knew I looked mixed but I didn’t really have an opinion about such things but when you are seen as a foreigner, you couldn’t help but feel like you didn’t belong. I thought about going overseas and not ever coming back. But when I was studying in the UK and considered staying on to work there, people there saw me as Chinese. It was ridiculous because I realised I was living my life the way people defined me.
I stopped caring very much after that. As I have more control over my content, I really want to like the fact that I’m Singaporean. It drives my creativity. I could be an example to let people understand that Singaporeans just don’t come with a category like Chinese, Malay or Indian or others. If I can do something to change that perception, I’ll feel quite happy about that. That is why my food is the way it is.
When you were on TV and people wanted to brand you in an “international” way, was that essential to your success? How do you define success?
S: There were some people who thought it was how I look that made me more appealing to the international market but I don’t think that’s the reason. When you grow up with two cultures, you get used to seeing things through different lenses, being exposed to more than one way of thinking, more than one way of eating, more than one way of being. So I don’t think it is because I look mixed that I’m able to translate culture or dishes or ingredients of other cultures. It’s the way I grew up and after overcoming that identity crisis, I’m now very bold about the perspective it has given me. Growing up in Singapore is great, and growing up in a family with a lot of mixed cultures helps you to understand that every culture has its own distinctiveness. Nothing is disgusting, nothing is shocking, everyone is just doing their own thing. My success in appreciating different food cultures and people is simply a natural extension of what I experience in a mixed culture family.
Perhaps you adapt well too and you like passing on what you see and learn to your audience. Not unlike Anthony Bourdain?
S: Yes, Anthony Bourdain’s shows work so well because they almost always feature locals like getting them to speak for themselves. He keeps everything real. People like short and simple content. If I make time to watch or read something, I want to come away having learnt something from it. I want to learn about the thing they are eating and why the people in that culture use that dish, or what’s the significance of it. I want to learn about more than just food that tastes good. So I am inspired to make my content that way as well.
Do you get to do that more now, as a producer and content creator today?
S: It’s hard. Travel content is off the books for now so I do more cooking-based stuff these days. If people can watch my videos and learn a new technique or even just think about creating a dish in a different way, I would be really happy with that. I just want them to gain some value from my content that is more than just entertainment.
Let’s talk a little bit about what drives your creativity.
N: I think It’s very important to understand the culture and origin of a dish and its ingredients so that you can play around with them more meaningfully. As Singaporeans, we cling to authenticity. We are quite a young country and food is something we are proud of, almost like an identity. And we have a very clear idea of what dishes make up Singaporean cuisine, and so people tend to stick to the same ways of preparing the dishes. But many of our dishes are fusion, like laksa and Hainanese chicken rice, which doesn’t exist on Hainan Island in the same form. It's obviously influenced by the people here. When you know how the ingredients work, it is super fun to just put things together and especially if they make sense. For example, Chinese food and Italian food are similar in the sense that they are quite ingredient-focused. The seasonings used are very similar, like the fermented ingredients such as Italian parmesan cheese and Chinese soy sauce. There is also fish sauce where another version of the fish sauce in Italy is called Colatura. It’s also like fermented fish liquid. So I’ll think about what kind of Italian food uses Colatura, and what kind of Chinese food uses fish sauce, then I play around with them. It’s so fun and interesting.
What is one misconception people have about being a chef?
S: People think that chefs can naturally cook well. But it’s not true. It’s like ‘you are a chef so you can cook beef hor fun’, but no, people who are very good at cooking beef hor fun have been practising for like 20 years. People don’t realise how many different techniques there are in different cuisines. If you only cook Italian food, you will probably take a while to get used to the high heat of frying Chinese food. A chef has to actively learn techniques or ingredients or dishes from other cultures to get good at it. It’s a pity many don’t know how much work chefs put into mastering stuff. Nobody is born with a genetic predisposition to cooking well. Sure it takes hard work to cook well, but I wish people wouldn’t be intimidated by it. Whenever I ask people ‘Do you like food?’ They’ll go ‘yeah, I like to eat’. If you like to eat you are already talented at cooking because you already know what taste you want, what texture you want. It’s just about learning the skills that allow you to create that.
Growing up, I always had anxiety because I was a perfectionist but only towards myself. I then realised I was holding myself up to unrealistic standards. My mom isn’t like that. She is actually a just do it sort of person and doesn’t wait for conditions or time to be perfect before doing anything. Wanting things to be perfect means sometimes you never see things through…. It was only in the last two years that I stopped doing that. It’s a journey and taking care of my mental health is the priority now.
What are some important things you have learned from your career experiences that can be shared with other women?
S: This sounds so cliche! But what I learnt is really to be myself. When I started off in this industry, I didn't even know who or what I was supposed to be so I tried to do what I thought people wanted me to do, whether it was what dishes people wanted to see, or what dishes people wanted to eat, or what persona they wanted me to be. And it’s the same thing with food. I have a lot of chips on my shoulder - am I Singaporean enough to cook Singaporean food, how come this ang mo is cooking laksa. Perhaps I put this on myself because of how I grew up. As I get more comfortable with my job, I get more comfortable with myself as well. I have a lot more fun as a result and people respond to it better. I embraced my mixed background and my uniqueness. Every single person has a unique perspective, because of their experiences, their family, their friends, their personality, everything. And all of that comes together to form a unique perspective. My career has taught me to come out of it learning that I should just own myself and my perspective, my body and my face. Who I am, that’s ok. And it’s not just ok, it’s good.
Did holding yourself to those standards and that imagined persona when you started out stress you out? How do you destress from that?
S: I used to be a very anxious person and I have been doing a lot of healing and therapy and stuff in the last few months. Growing up, I always had anxiety because I was a perfectionist but only towards myself. I then realised I was holding myself up to unrealistic standards. My mom isn’t like that. She is actually a just do it sort of person and doesn’t wait for conditions or time to be perfect before doing anything. Wanting things to be perfect means sometimes you never see things through. There have been a few projects that didn’t work out as I had wanted because I didn’t have funding or the right equipment or the circumstances were not right. Trying to be this perfect version of a TV host or chef or content creator made me really unhappy. It was only in the last two years that I stopped doing that. It’s a journey and taking care of my mental health is the priority now.
Meditation is important in helping me destress. and I only really seriously started meditating about two years ago. Meditation is also something that helps me journal, which helps me a lot in clarifying my thoughts. So I’m very passionate about journaling and I’m trying to get all my friends into that journaling circle.
All the women in my family have very strong personalities. It’s kind of like a matriarchal household, so I never felt weird talking about women's things, and I never felt like it shouldn’t be talked about. My grandmother and my mom were both opened about this kind of stuff.
What about when you are having a period? Do you get period cramps or any PMS?
S: I’ve gotten terrible cramps every period. I can’t really function on my first day of the period. So I rely on painkillers. I don't want to but I would be emotionally drained by the pain, the mood swings and mental breakdowns and then I realised it was happening every month. I attributed it to PMS, but it was so bad that it had to be more serious than PMS. I read about Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), which is like severe mood swings and menstrual symptoms. I started taking a supplement that people recommended and it went away. And I had PMDD for like two years, and it was really terrible. There are so many things we have to be educated on as women, like menstrual health. It’s crazy that at 28 years old at that time, I was still having to learn all these things and reading about how other women had so much trouble getting diagnosed because people would think they were just having mood swings or doctors would just medicate them. Learning about it made a huge difference for me. It’s like knowing ‘that it is not me, it’s the hormones’ that really removed a lot of stress. But for sure we women have a complicated relationship with our periods.
With your mixed background, do you think there are any differences in the Eastern and Western approaches to managing periods?
S: Being British, my dad would just tell me to take panadol, and I would have to take it in secret since my grandmother is against painkillers. I grew up with my grandmother so I remember she used to cook chicken soup every time I got my period. I love herbal soup, but what she prepared had barely any liquid. It was like fungus, red dates, and I had to eat all the ‘liao’. I remember dreading getting my period because I would have to drink this very intense black chicken soup. In fact, when I was about 11, I had very bad period cramps. At one point, I was on the floor, and she gave me a glass of port, and at 11, I just drank the port. I was drunk and also in pain. I don’t know how that is healthier than taking panadol. That is so funny.
F: Yeah, I think even in Europe they have some kind of herbal alcohol.
S: Yes but they don’t take herbal alcohol for health. In France no one thinks that is for health. But my dad did, like one time I was ill, he asked me to take a shot of whisky. It is like an old school remedy that can soothe the throat or whatever, but I felt way worse after that. So no matter what people say, alcohol obviously doesn’t work on me.
All the women in my family have very strong personalities. It’s kind of like a matriarchal household, so I never felt weird talking about women's things, and I never felt like it shouldn’t be talked about. My grandmother and my mom were both opened about this kind of stuff.
So what do you do now to manage your periods?
S: I am definitely not against painkillers. When you need them, just take them. There is no point in suffering for no reason. My grandmother would advise me to wear long pants, cover your belly with a blanket, all to keep wind out, very Chinese. I used to think it was so lame, but now I keep my midsection constantly warm, like with a hot water bottle or something that retains heat. As I get older, I also don’t drink cold drinks as much. I drink warm things throughout my period, which is something that I would roll my eyes at when I was younger.
Is there any food that you do not eat?
S: I don’t like chicken feet and I’m not a huge fan of sea cucumber. I don’t like anything with a gelatinous texture. But I like jellyfish so it’s kind of random. I will eat pork feet, but I don’t like the skin. I’m also not a huge fan of fisheye. My mom likes all this stuff but I’m not so I’m quite ang mo in that sense.
F: How about the white fungus?
S: I like that actually. My grandmother, as you know by now, was a very excessive person. So they say white fungus is good for the lungs right, so it’s good for eczema, I used to have eczema when I was growing up and she would make “白木耳糖水” (white fungus syrup). But like her chicken soup, there’s barely any liquid. She put so much white fungus and she would make me eat up this bowl of “白木耳糖水”. After that, you just don’t want to eat it ever again. I like it but not a whole bowl of it.
Ok! Last question, what’s your go-to comfort food during your period or at any time?
S: My favourite kind of food is porridge or anything of that sort. I actually told my father I like ‘sick people’ food. Like chicken noodle soup, porridge, or just soup. I love soup, especially when I’m on my period. There is something very comforting and warming about it. So I make simple soups like chicken with greens or something.
