In Singapore, it’s not easy to order a plate of abacus (prepared from rice flour and ingredients like mushroom and dried shrimps) unless we go to a Hakka restaurant. A traditionally home-cooked dish, abacus is usually served on special occasions, such as the Lunar New Year and on birthdays.
There is no reason why in Singapore, best known for its ethnic cuisine and math education, we can’t marry mathematics and food to promote both items to an often-innumerate and hungry world.
A Parents’ Nite would be a good occasion to popularize the abacus, both as a calculating instrument and as a Chinese dialect dish. Parents and their children would learn to do simple arithmetical operations on an abacus, and also learn to cook and enjoy a traditional Hakka dish of abacus. At the least, it could be a calculating-and-cooking fruitful night to bond the family and school staff together.
Let’s look at some off-the-wall parallelisms, when vintage math meets traditional cuisine.
1. Learning to calculate on an abacus reminds us of our mathematical heritage—a minds-on activity that could be used to promote multicultural mathematics.
Cooking a plate of abacus introduces others to some Chinese cuisine—a hands-on activity that could help to promote and preserve a traditional Hakka dish.
2. Other than a few countries like China and Taiwan, and Chinatowns, the abacus may help rekindle interest in things à la Chinoise.
Other than in Hakka-speaking homes, folks may share the abacus recipe to preserve their fast-disappearing traditional dish.
3. Entrepreneurs may come up with an electrified abacus or an abaculator.
Entrepreneurs may consider canning abacus (halal and kosher) for potential overseas markets.
4. Some creative uses of the abacus involve finding the square and cube roots of a number, and differentiating and integrating functions.
Some creative and innovative cooks may dish out new abacus recipes to cater for local tastes in different locations.
5. At math conferences, the abacus dish may be served, providing healthy food for the body.
At food festivals, talks on how to use the abacus creatively, especially in mental computation, may provide intellectual food for the mind.
6. In home economics, learning how to prepare a dish of abacus will add spice to an often-boring cooking lesson.
In elementary mathematics, learning to square, cube, square root, and cube root a number on an abacus will vow students, thus leading them to pay due respect to the “primitive calculator.”
7. The abacus is used as a divination tool to welcome good luck and prosperity for superstitious businessmen or shop owners.
A plate of abacus is fearfully or reverently offered on the altar to appease the hungry ghosts during the Seventh (or Ghost) Month by Taoists and Buddhists.
Surely, math educators could come up with more interesting liaisons between the abacus as a calculating tool and the abacus as a Chinese dialect dish. Why not share with the rest of us your arithmetic and culinary thoughts?
Gastronomically and mathematically yours
K.C. Yan
www.singaporemathplus.com
© Yan Kow Cheong, Feb. 14, 2013
