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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.
