The One That Started It All

About 3½ years ago, there was a mini-revolution of sorts in the bakery industry in Singapore. The way bread was sold to and eaten by Singaporeans was perhaps forever changed. Aggressive upstart BreadTalk launched their chain of bakeries with modern Zen interiors of steel and glass. They called their bakeries “bread boutiques”, elevating the humble bread bun to designer status. And of course, they also launched the one product that shook not only Singapore’s bread world but also created tsunami waves in the nation’s restaurant industry.

What am I talking about? The Flosss bun (yes, complete with the triple ‘s’ in the name). Doesn’t that one extra letter seem to up the “hip and cool” factor just a touch? The product itself is simply a soft white bun topped with pork floss, with a sweet custard/mayo/cream-like filling. Sounds simple, and yet it was considered completely innovative and exciting when it first appeared. Pork floss has been around for generations. It was our ancestors’ way of preserving meat – shredding it and drying it. It was cheap, it was convenient. As kids, we grew up eating pork floss sprinkled over plain white rice porridge. Yet, no-one, it would seem, thought of selling buns with it as the main attraction. But eating floss with bread was not altogether a new idea… even as a kid, I’ve eaten floss sprinkled on a slice of bread, sometimes over a layer of sweetened condensed milk.

Perhaps it was a reminder of childhood memories or the lure of a classy ambience… whatever it was, Singaporeans ate up these buns by the hundreds of thousands! Seriously. Lines snaked at every BreadTalk outlet. Nobody seemed to mind queuing for up to 20-30 minutes to pay for their precious floss buns. Nor did they seem to mind paying designer prices for a humble bread bun. And before you could say “pork floss” other bakeries were jumping on the bandwagon, all launching their own versions of bread with floss. Some were obvious replicas, others “innovated”… and so we came to be acquainted with chicken floss buns, fish floss buns, floss on the inside of the bun, floss on top, floss rolled in a swirl, floss with bacon, floss with sausage… there was floss everywhere!

Almost all these other bakeries sold their floss buns at prices that were 30% or more lower than the original Flosss, and yet Singaporeans couldn’t resist the allure of the first and the original.

The ripples created by Flosss gathered momentum, crashing like tsunami waves through the rest of the food business in Singapore. Strange things started appearing on the menus of “proper” Chinese restaurants. Chicken with pork floss, pork ribs with pork floss, prawns with pork floss, eggplants with pork floss… Even Pizza Hut, (yes, that icon of American fast food culture) at one stage had pizza with chicken floss!! I was almost half-expecting a floss burger to emerge from under the Golden Arches! Unsuspecting foreigners would have been forgiven for thinking floss was our national food!

The reason why I’m writing about this is because I have to plead guilty to past momentary “insanity” too. Yes, there was a time when I couldn’t resist the seductive allure of Flosss. I too had fallen under the spell of its tantalizing aromas, fresh from the oven. I had succumbed to its soft and tender crumb. I was spellbound by the oozing sensuality of its cascades of crispy, fragrant pork floss. Ah! The intense anticipation as I stood in line awaiting my turn for a meeting with Flosss. The sexiness of licking every floss crumb from my fingers…

Then just as suddenly, I stopped visiting Flosss. I could pass its window and not blink an eye. I even became oblivious to its smells. The sight of Flosss no longer caused heart palpitations. Yes, like a teenage infatuation, it disappeared as quickly as it appeared. I joined many other Singaporeans in “awakening” once more.

It has been a long while since I’ve had an encounter with Flosss. But it had to happen, right? Our paths had to cross again, and so it did this weekend. What was it like? Well, it is said that our mind plays tricks on us. Sensations and experiences somehow are always enhanced and heightened in memories. And sad to say, Flosss was not how I remembered it to be. Its taste, its fragrance, its appearance… was this the Flosss I had once loved so much? A twinge of sadness crossed my heart as I looked at the rather obvious “bald spots” where once there used to be a heap of, well, floss… The Flosss I encountered this weekend was a shadow of its former self. Perhaps the slow economy of the last couple of years had affected its constitution… it had lost some weight, its sparkle and brazenness was gone. All the same, I salute you Flosss… thanks for the memories…

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.