What’s in a Ray? Cultural Histories of the Stingray in Singapore

Mention “stingray”, and most people in Singapore would immediately think of the stingingly fragrant and intensely flavourful hawker dish known as sambal stingray. 

A slab of barbecued ray meat on a charred banana leaf, slathered with a layer of rich sambal, adorned with onion slices and a side of cincalok—the iconic flavours of sambal stingray is defined by its condiments. But what do we know about the stingray itself? 

As word on the street goes, sambal stingray first appeared in our region during the early 1980s. However, this isn’t the earliest presence of stingrays on our plates or in other cultural spheres. In this session, oral historian Ms Kathy Poh will discuss some culinary and cultural histories of the stingray in Singapore. Through this, she hopes to arrive at some new cultural understandings of rays in a local context. 

About the Speaker:  

Kathy is a researcher whose interests lie at the intersections of visual culture and natural history. She graduated from Yale-NUS College in 2020 with a specialization in Art History and is currently an oral historian at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum.