Again, as I have given my own personal comments in FB regarding this issue. I think the key point here, we are not talking about big restaurants, big hotels, or foreign food restaurants (like Thais, Burmese, Filipinos, French, Italian). Here we are talking very much of our street foods, our hawkers good, our local delicacies....like Nyonya cookings, like white curry mee, hokkien mee, fried okay teow....chi cheong fun.. o kuey, o jian, and many more......
Questions:
1) This should be more of family type of recipe, and pass on from generation to generation
2) It suppose to help more income for the family
3) should be very much local taste, specialty to that area, for example Penang cendol, Penang laksa.... Why must you employ foreigners to cook these food, or to make these food, do they know the taste? Are they able to know exactly what is so special about Penang taste for example? You can get them to assist in the kitchen but NOT taking fully over.
Personally I have experienced a few times, specially in KL area, at pasar malam, those selling popiah, those selling asam laksa using foreign cooks (so called) but they are, for me maids employed to help with domestic chores but taken advantage of by the local vendors...and in return they just sit next to the counter or not appearing at all, and leave everything to the "imported cooks"... I think this should not be the way.
I have no qualms about this, if they are not really so called local food, and it makes it more difficult for me to accept so called foreign cooks taking over our pasar mlm hawkers? Is this not a kind of abuse? If I were to go for a trade in a pasar mlm, it is a means of making more income, and if I get or employ 3-4 maids to take over my role of a cook, I think this is a kind of being lazy and to take over the advantage of cheaper labour and making more profits out of that, and in the process sacrificing the local food, local taste.
And take another example, Nyonya food, it is basically found only in a few places, and even now, if you really ask me to cook Nyonya food (and for sure I like to cook), it will be a big problem. Yes, you can train some people to take over, and your family members of locals, perhaps it makes more sense, Say you take a Indon or Filipino (no offence intended), for a start, the tastebud is different, and the food taste they have since they were young were different (being brought up and exposed to different environment) and hence if they were to cook, the authenticity will not be there anymore. Yes, possibly after many years, they can be well trained, but what is the percentage of success rate?
And having said that, and being a Malaysian, and having taken Malay food from a very young age, and if you were to ask me to cook a pure 100% Malay food, I still cannot make exactly the taste.. for example sambal tumis, if it is made by a person of Chinese origin, it could be a bit sweeter, hence the real taste is not there any more. You can say well, you add more varieties to the local cuisine, yes, true, but what I want is the authentic one, not the variation.
And have anyone asked, are we importing professional chefts/cooks or we get foreign workers, layman workers, maids, to take over the cooking role? which one is which one? In my opinion it is more of the latter, as an easy way out, to cheaper labour cost and the shop owner can save cost, and can also take advantage of the maid having to work 6-7 days a week. with local workers, they cannot have this "privilege"...!!
So, think carefully. I am sure with new rules and law, people will complain, but we need to think of the long term, for the benefits of culture and tradition. Do not take easy way out.
Choong
BM
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