The relationships between mothers and daughters can come with many challenges. But what about when they actually team up to run their own businesses? This Mother’s Day, the Weekly speaks to five mother-daughter duos who have combined their talents and expertise to pursue their passions and create a thriving business.
While Singapore’s a food hub that’s home to world-renowned cuisines, it also has a trove of diverse heritage dishes that are fast disappearing. But a local company is working hard to change that and preserve vanishing age-old culinary traditions.
Ye Traditions comprises a mother-daughter pair, retiree Yap Joo Eng, 57, and her daughter Jinyen Yap, 28. Together, they aim to preserve and recreate traditional recipes from all dialect groups through partnering with other senior partner-chefs, including Hockchew, Hokkien and Hakka dishes.
Some of their bestselling products include red rice wine and Fuzhou meat dumplings, as well as a newly introduced Hakka yellow rice wine, which has been requested by many of their customers as there are very few authentic ones without any preservatives.
“Through Ye Traditions, we hope to recreate memories by bringing home the taste of traditions and heritage for everyone,” shares Jinyen.
The pair share with us how their love for heritage dishes has deepened their bond, how running a business has changed their perception of each other and more.
Joo Eng (JE): It started out when Jinyen was eating a bowl of red rice wine chicken longevity noodles on her birthday. She commented that traditional recipes are often forgotten and wondered where she could get authentic products in the future. By the time people wanted to whip up a family dish, the recipes are often incomplete and the taste would never be the same.
Jin Yen (JY): Encouraged by my passion for traditional food, my mum stepped in to kickstart some of the recipes and source for seniors for the rest. After a while, we realised that we made a great team and our love for Ye Traditions grew. As we expanded, the family has been stepping in to help in their own areas of expertise so that has been fun!
JY: I love that my mum is so encouraging and also willing to learn and be adventurous in new recipes. We are constantly on a search for recipes that have been forgotten, and this pushes us to bounce ideas off each other.
JE: My daughter continues to inspire me and I find it rare that someone from the younger generation still loves traditional food so much! I love spending time with her — from when we would reach out to the elderly partners for recipes to brainstorming on how to make our social media more creative! There is never a moment that is boring with her. We know we are committed to our mission — working with seniors to serve traditional foods with the highest and most authentic quality.
JY: We try to see each other as business partners first when working together. This can be challenging because we might let our differences and relationship get in the way, but I personally believe that there isn’t a challenge that a good heart-to-heart discussion cannot resolve.
JY: Even though my mom has always been a full-time working mum, she has always prioritised spending time with her children. I’ve always loved watching her whip up dishes she learnt from my grandmother. Working together with her simply gave me more opportunities to spend time with her.
JE: I love seeing how dedicated she is to preserve these traditions. She has a clear vision of where and how she wants the business to grow while always keeping in mind why we started this.
JY & JE: Definitely! There may be times where we have different views on how traditions should be promoted or even marketed, as we have our own interpretations on how it should be. This can be even more challenging with long-lost recipes because it can be challenging to recreate the taste.
When we come to a roadblock, we get the rest of the family involved and they become our guinea pigs on how the recipes can be better improved.
JY: I’ve learned that family recipes are more than just steps of how to create a dish. It is a combination of emotions and memories mixed together. Since the start of Ye Traditions, I’ve learned to love her cooking even more, because I know that her dishes are ones that I’ll never be able to find anywhere else in the world.
JE: Working with my daughter has given me the opportunity to be adventurous and creative! I’ve learned social media management and am a pro at Instagram Stories now.
JY & JE: It was when we finally managed to perfect our Red Rice Wine recipe. My grandmother passed down the recipe, but we always struggled to recreate the dish the way she made it. Something always tasted different, but we could never pinpoint why.
It was even more frustrating because we used red rice wine in our dishes almost every day! Despite that, we practiced a lot and motivated each other to be patient and perfect the recipe. When we managed to perfect the recipe, it felt as though my late grandmother was making the dish for us again.
Visit Ye Traditions’ Instagram page or online store for more information or to order.