Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Malay culinarians
M.A. Khairunnisa, M.S.M. Zahari, M. Rosmaliza & M.S.M. Shariff
Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Mangement, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: Nearly every culture and language has contributed to the culinary language. Including
Malay, there are abundant of unique food names terminologies that can be found in Malay delicacies that
typically named after the appearance of the food, the way food is prepared, places, people and certain
events or incidents. Although Malay culinary is rich in terminologies, much of the terminology is believed
no longer being learned not only among the Malay youngsters but also among the young Malay profes-
sional chefs and culinarians. Much of the Malay food names terminologies are believed of getting ignored
and gradually disappeared and in fact some of the words do no longer exist. This study is empirically
investigating the level of understanding of Malay food names terminologies and its impact to the usage
among the young Malay culinarians in their daily cooking activities. A quantitative research approach
was used and the information requires were obtained from the young Malay culinarians who previously
had undergone formal culinary education and working directly in the food sectors within the Kelang Val-
ley, Malaysia. The results from descriptive and multiple regression analyses revealed that the majority of
the respondents have a relatively low understanding of Malay food names terminologies and only use a
few of it in their daily cooking activities.
Keywords
:
Malay food, food terminologies, and culinar
1 INTRODUCTION
ing decorum and others (AlTamimi, 2011). Ameri-
can, for instance, although embraced, accepted
and use certain French culinary terms, they also
created, possessed and practices their own food
terminologies using American English language
(Sundari, 2008). These include the essential cook-
ing methods like
stew, simmer, poach, deep-fry
, and
food names such as
Caesar salad, corn dog, jacket
potato,
and many others. Spanish also practices
their own culinary terms like
blando, cocer al horno,
rociando
,
escalfado
denoting to methods of cook-
ing, whereas
cazuel, plancha, comal
are referring to
types of utensils and equipments.
Within the Malay community, there are numer-
ous and valuable food terminologies created and
used since the olden days (Sharif, Supardi, Ishak &
Ahmad, 2008). Although Malay culinary is rich in
terminologies, much of them are believed no longer
being used. According to Sariyan (2010), the big-
gest single threat to the Malay food language is the
modern culture and society that marginalizing the
tradition of the past. This phenomenon occurs not
only among the ordinary Malay youngsters but
also goes to young Malay professional chefs and
culinarians. Many of Malay food terminologies
are fading out of use and being replaced by others
foreign language such as English and French that
Language is like anthropomorphic organisms with
lives and existence of it is dependent on the com-
municative activities and behaviors of their speak-
ers (Lehmann, 2006). Language is not a static
process but acts as a vehicle through which culture
is expressed, conveyed from one generation to oth-
ers (Grenoble & Whaley, 1998). The preservation
of a native language acts as a stronger connec-
tion to their community because the societies who
embrace their language will encourage their chil-
dren and the youngster to use the language more
often in the society (Mulia, 2003). Lazear (1995)
mentioned that language also develops within all
fields of profession which act as a mechanism to
pass a specific knowledge and information through
language terminologies. Michaud (2008) expressed
that, language through its terminology denotes and
represent specific meanings of something. These
terminologies exist in just about every kind of area
and cooking with no exception. Despites the uni-
versal terminologies established within particular
disciplines, every ethnic culture or country are also
having their own food languages or terminologies
which signifying certain meaning to either in the
preparations, methods of cooking, equipment, eat-
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