The politics of disgusting food and Singapore’s changing palate
The article explores the cultural and regulatory history of pig's blood in Singaporean cuisine following a 1999 ban due to the Nipah virus. It highlights how public health crises can permanently alter a nation's culinary identity and collective memory.
Why it matters
It illustrates the intersection of public health policy, food culture, and the preservation of traditional heritage in a modernizing society.
Its return after 27 years reveals how regulation, memory and changing ideas about what is disgusting can reshape what a nation eats.
Pig’s blood was banned in Singapore in 1999 following the Nipah virus outbreak.
Listen Thomas Koh was 11 years old in 1999 when he watched his grandfather’s world collapse. Since the 1950s, the Koh family has run Koh Brother Pig’s Organ Soup stall at Tiong Bahru Market. Its signature dish was a clear Teochew-style broth simmered with pork bones, offal and salted greens. At its centre were dark, jelly-like cubes of pig’s blood.
Koh remembers the routine. Every morning, buckets of fresh blood would arrive at the stall.
Left to set, the blood became soft, curd-like blocks. When customers ordered, the blocks were sliced, blanched and added to the soup.
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