Hawker Behind Heritage Kueh Tutu Stall Tan’s Tutu Coconut Cake Passes Away Aged 63
“My father invented tutu kueh and my brother opened this [stall],” Tan Bee Hua, the owner of Tan’s Tutu Coconut Cake, once said. “We’re more than 80 years in the making”. She passed away on July 29.
In 2004, Tan Bee Hua quit her office job of 25 years to help run the family's kueh tutu business.
Among Tan Bee Hua's prized possessions are her late father's certificate of registration from 1932 and a hawker licence from 1957.
Tan took over the store from her late brother in 2004 following his death. Speaking to CNA Lifestyle in 2018, Tan said that the business was first started by her father as a pushcart and shared how her whole family would help out.
Kueh tutu are small steamed rice flour cakes with various fillings like grated coconut or peanuts served over pieces of pandan leaf.
Tan Bee Hua's late brother, Cheong Chuan, manning his kueh tutu stall at People's Park in the 1970s.
Tan’s Tutu a piece of Singapore’s makan history
“When I was in secondary school, during the school holidays, we would help clean the pandan leaves and fry the peanuts. Then I would help sell at the roadside before my elder brother, who was working part-time at a machinery hardware store, would come in the evening,” recalled Tan.
“We moved around Singapore – we’d go to the Cathay where there were midnight shows, or Great World City.”
Tan Bee Hua selling kueh tutu in the 1980s.
Tan Bee Huan (right) with her sister-in-law, Ho Cheng Khim, at the Havelock Food Centre branch of Tan's Tu Tu Coconut Cake
Tributes pour in
In a tribute post on the Facebook group Hawkers United, Melvin Chew, the owner of Jin Ji Teochew Braised Duck And Kway Chap, said that Tan was a "legend".
The ingredients for kueh tutu are all made from scratch.
“Auntie Tan had been following her family selling tutu kueh since she [was] very young. [The] passing of Auntie Tan is [a] big [loss] of our hawker culture.”
Source: CNA/hq
Photos: Mayo Martin, Tan Bee Hua
The original version of this story first appeared in CNA Lifestyle.
For more CNA Lifestyle stories, visit https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/.
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