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anna_wingit looks like outright plagiarism, or so Bloomsbury's quiet withdrawal of the book and mouse-like silence to date would indicate.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3152114/british-chefs-cookbook-pulled-publisher-after-singapore
Apparently several other chefs and cookbook writers have now found parts of the book suspiciously familiar as well.
I had no idea who Haigh was, since there's no reason for me to bother with Asian food when I'm in the West - I'd rather eat local or regional at least, if I can - but I noticed a point that perhaps a Western commentator might miss. The media say that her mother is/was a Singaporean Chinese, but I didn't see, in all the folderol about her notebooks, whether her mother was a Straits Chinese, which is the particular cuisine in question. It's highly relevant, since Straits Chinese is a very different culture from those of China (it would be like confusing the Welsh with the Patagonian Welsh), and the food is nothing like the main Chinese cuisines.
And it's not that obscure either, if that was what was being relied upon. The community is cosmopolitan, educated and has been widespread around several Southeast Asian countries for the last two centuries at least. The cuisine is very well-known not just in Singapore but all over Southeast Asia (and a fair bit of East Asia), not to mention Australia, New Zealand and various bits of the Indian Ocean Rim. So the idea that no-one would notice is very funny.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3152114/british-chefs-cookbook-pulled-publisher-after-singapore
Apparently several other chefs and cookbook writers have now found parts of the book suspiciously familiar as well.
I had no idea who Haigh was, since there's no reason for me to bother with Asian food when I'm in the West - I'd rather eat local or regional at least, if I can - but I noticed a point that perhaps a Western commentator might miss. The media say that her mother is/was a Singaporean Chinese, but I didn't see, in all the folderol about her notebooks, whether her mother was a Straits Chinese, which is the particular cuisine in question. It's highly relevant, since Straits Chinese is a very different culture from those of China (it would be like confusing the Welsh with the Patagonian Welsh), and the food is nothing like the main Chinese cuisines.
And it's not that obscure either, if that was what was being relied upon. The community is cosmopolitan, educated and has been widespread around several Southeast Asian countries for the last two centuries at least. The cuisine is very well-known not just in Singapore but all over Southeast Asia (and a fair bit of East Asia), not to mention Australia, New Zealand and various bits of the Indian Ocean Rim. So the idea that no-one would notice is very funny.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 05:21 pm (UTC)My favorite Malaysian restaurant in Boston has a lot of Straits Chinese/Peranakan dishes.
I hate seeing plagiarism; it always strikes me as stupid.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 07:51 pm (UTC)(The only one I know of in Boston.)
no subject
Date: 2021-10-13 07:56 pm (UTC)Yes!
(There is also Royal East in Central Square, which was fantastic the one time I ate there, but Penang is a staple. We are nowhere near their delivery range and I miss them depserately.)