Penang food only by the locals?-The Malay Mail Online
AUGUST 4, 2014 — According to the Penang Chief Minister, too many foreign cooks are spoiling the broth that is Penang hawker fare. He is running a month-long campaign to ascertain the views of his constituents on the matter, and if they agree with him, foreigners will not be able to cook Penang hawker food any more.
Apparently, random surveys seem to confirm that Penangites indeed do not want foreigners cooking street food. Add to them the federal Tourism Minister who fears foreigners cooking would weaken the Penang brand as a haven for food lovers. Online news portals and social media are also abuzz with indignant netizens complaining against MCA’s Leong Kim Soon for criticising the federal minister’s endorsement of the Penang government stance.
Reasons range from a fear of dilution of taste, preserving Penang’s heritage and taking jobs away from the locals to just dissing the MCA. So far so good, except for a teeny problem about the origins of Penang hawker food.
For centuries, Penang has drawn settlers from all over the place, bringing their food with them. Hokkien and Nyonya food are the work of the intermingling of immigrant and indigenous traditions in the melting pot of Penang, as is Penang Malay and Indian fare. For a delightful exposition on this subject, I recommend food writer Robyn Eckhardt’s article.
What the respective ministers are espousing is the ultimate death of what makes Penang food what it is today; its ability to create wondrous culinary offerings by assimilating the best from anywhere in the world into its own cuisine. This intermingling of culinary traditions is the hippest modern trend in food, called fusion.
If we can celebrate Anthony Bourdain or Bobby Chin being inspired by Penang food, why can’t the humble chef from Vietnam or Myanmar take a crack at it? Passion is in any case a much better determinant of taste than nationality, and who knows, it may give the world a better Penang rojak, however hard it may be to imagine today.
Even if you believe that Penang dishes are already perfect and cannot become any better, there are other reasons why the proposal to impose artificial restrictions on a fundamentally capitalist enterprise that has made Penang the low-priced street food haven it is today is fatally flawed.
From a supply perspective, why are the proud purveyors of decades and in some cases century’s old family culinary secrets letting foreigners in on the act? Could it be because their own children do not find the proposition of running the family business economically or culturally attractive? Could it be that it is impossible to recruit local Penangites to work in a hawker environment for the hours it takes, for the pay it offers? Could it be that foreigners are hungry and passionate enough to follow instructions precisely to preserve the sanctity of the recipe and yet be happy with the benefits? Could it be that rising inflation and the pressure to keep prices low is eroding the margins to such a point that some sacrifices have to be made?
If the quality of ingredients and the cooking process cannot be compromised, wages seem to be an attractive place to start. In a free market, demand flows towards the best value proposition which in this context can be categorised as the best taste for the best price. If, as Lim Guan Eng believes, foreigners are ruining the taste of the food, customers will let their displeasure be known to the hawkers where it hurts; in the pocket.
Simultaneously demand at the establishments where the food tastes “authentic” will rise, allowing these owners to make better profits and hire passionate locals at salaries they can stomach. This is how the hardest working, the most innovative and the strongest survive and the rest fall by the wayside.
Stifling this spirit of innovation and regeneration by forcing foreigners out of the process will inevitably raise costs, encourage evasion of the law by owners, create huge unevenness in the quality of the product and eventually ruin the reputation of the brand that Nazri Aziz is professing to protect.
Carry on in this manner and Penang will wind up with food that is not affordable, made by people with no passion for it and with no consistency.
As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Apparently, random surveys seem to confirm that Penangites indeed do not want foreigners cooking street food. Add to them the federal Tourism Minister who fears foreigners cooking would weaken the Penang brand as a haven for food lovers. Online news portals and social media are also abuzz with indignant netizens complaining against MCA’s Leong Kim Soon for criticising the federal minister’s endorsement of the Penang government stance.
Reasons range from a fear of dilution of taste, preserving Penang’s heritage and taking jobs away from the locals to just dissing the MCA. So far so good, except for a teeny problem about the origins of Penang hawker food.
For centuries, Penang has drawn settlers from all over the place, bringing their food with them. Hokkien and Nyonya food are the work of the intermingling of immigrant and indigenous traditions in the melting pot of Penang, as is Penang Malay and Indian fare. For a delightful exposition on this subject, I recommend food writer Robyn Eckhardt’s article.
What the respective ministers are espousing is the ultimate death of what makes Penang food what it is today; its ability to create wondrous culinary offerings by assimilating the best from anywhere in the world into its own cuisine. This intermingling of culinary traditions is the hippest modern trend in food, called fusion.
If we can celebrate Anthony Bourdain or Bobby Chin being inspired by Penang food, why can’t the humble chef from Vietnam or Myanmar take a crack at it? Passion is in any case a much better determinant of taste than nationality, and who knows, it may give the world a better Penang rojak, however hard it may be to imagine today.
Even if you believe that Penang dishes are already perfect and cannot become any better, there are other reasons why the proposal to impose artificial restrictions on a fundamentally capitalist enterprise that has made Penang the low-priced street food haven it is today is fatally flawed.
From a supply perspective, why are the proud purveyors of decades and in some cases century’s old family culinary secrets letting foreigners in on the act? Could it be because their own children do not find the proposition of running the family business economically or culturally attractive? Could it be that it is impossible to recruit local Penangites to work in a hawker environment for the hours it takes, for the pay it offers? Could it be that foreigners are hungry and passionate enough to follow instructions precisely to preserve the sanctity of the recipe and yet be happy with the benefits? Could it be that rising inflation and the pressure to keep prices low is eroding the margins to such a point that some sacrifices have to be made?
If the quality of ingredients and the cooking process cannot be compromised, wages seem to be an attractive place to start. In a free market, demand flows towards the best value proposition which in this context can be categorised as the best taste for the best price. If, as Lim Guan Eng believes, foreigners are ruining the taste of the food, customers will let their displeasure be known to the hawkers where it hurts; in the pocket.
Simultaneously demand at the establishments where the food tastes “authentic” will rise, allowing these owners to make better profits and hire passionate locals at salaries they can stomach. This is how the hardest working, the most innovative and the strongest survive and the rest fall by the wayside.
Stifling this spirit of innovation and regeneration by forcing foreigners out of the process will inevitably raise costs, encourage evasion of the law by owners, create huge unevenness in the quality of the product and eventually ruin the reputation of the brand that Nazri Aziz is professing to protect.
Carry on in this manner and Penang will wind up with food that is not affordable, made by people with no passion for it and with no consistency.
As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Comments
Post a Comment