Kaya toast, a common breakfast dish in Southeast Asia, has appeared in a list of top 100 sandwiches globally.
Interestingly, the ranking listed kaya toast as a Singaporean dish, causing Malaysians to question the true origins of the popular sandwich.
Source: @tasteatlas on Instagram
Published on Monday (11 March), the ranking by food travel guide TasteAtlas listed kaya toast as the 42nd best sandwich in the world.
According to the food website, kaya toast originated from Hainanese people who worked as cooks on British ships.
The cooks then settled in Singapore and sold their food to locals, replacing “British jams with local coconut spreads.”
TasteAtlas also described the sandwich as a “popular Malaysian and Singaporean breakfast” dish.
Some Malaysians are questioning the legitimacy of the ranking, and in particular, whether the dish originated from Singapore.
Malaysian comedy page MGAG even posted a meme referencing Singapore’s previous “attempts” to claim Malaysian dishes as their own, such as Hainanese chicken rice.
Source: MGAG on Facebook
MGAG also added another meme showing a Singapore-labelled pickpocket attempting to steal “kaya toast” out of a Malaysian-labelled man’s pocket.
Other netizens joined in the commentary, expressing that Malaysians need to reclaim the ‘title’.
Source: Facebook
Some users highlighted how ironic it is for the dish to be associated with Singapore despite the country’s apparent inability to produce kaya due to its limited land area.
Despite comments from Malaysians wanting to claim the dish as their own, a few suggested putting the origins aside and focusing on the dish itself.
Source: Facebook
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Featured image adapted from cheungctk on Canva.
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