The Ice Ball Man

Posted by noelbynature under Food, Lifestyle
(0) Comment • (3897) Reads • Permalink

FOYer Victor Koo comes across a postcard of an Ice Ball Man, a just-about extinct species of hawker in Singapore. For those of you who’ve lived in through ice-cream-with-sticks right up to the era of Ben & Jerry’s, learn more about this long forgotten iced treat, as well some other aspects about the picture - stuff that we don’t see nowadays.

Notice the big container in front which looks like a modern-day fish tank with no fish but with some sand at its bottom. The transparent red liquid within the container is the drink that I talked about in the earlier article. It is called air selasih in Malay and the ’sand’ below looks like frog eggs but they are actually basil seeds. They have a slippery mucous coating after they have been soaked in water for some time. When you bite the seeds, they crunch delightfully.

Read Victor’s post about the Ice Ball Man here.

Tags: Ice Ball Man, Bottled Drinks, Vanishing Hawker Trades, Albert Street