Western Cuisine: Strategic Performance of Malaysian Students

Barrows, Henry, et.al. (2017)

Abstract

This study investigates the performance of Malaysian students towards Western Cuisine. The

popularity of Italian cuisine continues to shape the global evolution of Western-ethnic cuisines.

Simplicity, taste, and food preparation of Italian cuisine stimulates new restaurant creation. This

study uses in-depth analysis of research literature together with a strategic environmental scan

and structured interviews. The results show that high prices, doubts regarding authenticity, and

Muslim concerns regarding pork dishes create uncertainty among Malaysian consumers. These

negative perceptions could dampen growth in the Italian cuisine sector. The study contributes to

strategic marketing, entrepreneurship, and tourism related studies and practitioners in the field.

This study investigates performance of Malaysian students towards Western Cuisine. Published

literature on consumer behavior suggests that Western cuisine in Asia became popular with the

arrival of expatriates, with the opening of international hotels and by local entrepreneurs

launching new restaurant ventures. Italian cuisine abroad instead was first made familiar by

Italian immigrants first to countries in Europe, the Americas and Oceania and then to Asia. The

growing popularity of Italian cuisine around the world today continues to shape the global

evolution of western-ethnic cuisines. It stimulates new restaurant venture creation and related

marketing strategies, because of the consumers’ acceptance of taste and simplicity of food

preparation. Malaysian consumers support this trend, however, high prices, doubts regarding

authenticity of Italian food preparation, and specific ingredients used such as pork has created an

uncertainty among consumers. These negative perceptions could hamper Italian cuisine from
sustaining its popularity in Malaysia especially if it looses its authenticity by promoting strictly

hall certified food. This study examines the attitude of Malaysian consumers in their perceptions

of Western cuisine using the Italian cuisine based on the theory of consumer behavior.

Quantitative and qualitative methodology is used with an in-depth analysis of the literature

together with a strategic environmental scan to investigate the attractiveness of the Italian cuisine

in Malaysia and to gain an understanding of the Malaysian restaurant consumer’s attitude toward

western cuisine. The results contribute to the body of knowledge of strategic marketing,

entrepreneurship, and tourism related studies and will help current and future investors and

current restaurateurs in Malaysia.

KEYWORDS: ethnic cuisine, Italian cuisine, restaurant entrepreneurship, cuisine

trends, strategic hospitality marketing

Many differences divide traditional North American and Asian food cultures — cooking

methods, dining habits, famous recipes. They each have signature ingredients — think of soy

sauce, ginger and sriracha in Southeast Asian food or butter and molasses in Southern food. But

a new study from an international team led by Yong-Yeol Ahn and Sebastian Ahnert, published

in Scientific Reports, shows that there are actually deeper patterns at play.

It turns out North American and Western European cuisines tend to include ingredients with

similar flavor molecules together in one recipe, while East Asian and Southern European

cuisines tend not to. That means that the ingredients in most recipes traditionally associated with

Western cuisine overlap and deepen each others’ constituent flavors, while those in Asian recipes

tend to bristle against one another with distinctive flavors.

The researchers discovered this trend by analyzing recipes they found online at AllRecipes and

Epicurious. They downloaded the tens of thousands of recipes available on each of those

databases, then added added data on the underlying flavor molecules that make each ingredient

taste the way it does.

The process of appending flavor molecule information to ingredients allowed them to find the

degree of taste-similarity of any given pair of ingredients. This in itself led to some interesting

findings — including the “flavor network“ visualized above, which divides the world of

ingredients into different zones of similar flavor groups. That allowed the researchers to

empirically demonstrate the overlap in flavors between alcohols and fruits, between vegetables

and herbs and between meats and beans.

But the real interest of the study comes through its application of this raw data to differences in

cultures’ cuisines. After a lot of dense statistical analysis, the researchers found that much of the

divide between the flavor-coordination tendencies of each cuisine can be ascribed to the

prevalence of just a few ingredients.

The harmoniousness of North American cuisine’s flavors really stems from its reliance on a few

heavy-tasting products commonly associated with baked goods, especially milk, butter, cocoa,

vanilla, cream, cream cheese, egg, peanut butter and strawberries. And the study chalked the

dissonance of East Asian cuisine up to its use of beef, ginger, pork, cayenne, chicken and onion.

These ingredients are characteristic of each cultures’ recipes — and share relatively many flavor

molecules, and relatively few flavor molecules, respectively, with the ingredients they’re often

paired with.
 One intriguing nugget from the study, though, bodes well for the future careers of the world’s

ambitious chefs. In the introduction to the piece, the researchers note that the ingredients they

found in their two recipe databases could theoretically be combined into 10 quadrillion recipes

— of which only one million, just .0000001%, have already been recorded.

Please give your answer using the descriptive scales below. Simply check the appropriate box

which commensurate to your responses.

Numerical Scale Descriptive Scale

3 Always Perform
2 Sometimes Perform
1 Never Perform

Indicators 1 2 3
Cooking Methods
1. Placing food partially and briefly in water to remove external membranes
from food such as liver and sweetbreads or fruits and vegetables such as
peaches and tomatoes
1. 2. Place food in cool water that is brought to a boil then a simmer.
1. 3. Place food in rapidly boiling water before removing it to cool in cold water.
4. Cooking food by low simmering or cooking below the boiling point. The
liquid used could be stock, milk or others.
5.Immersing food in water and bringing it to a boil. Preserve nutrients in the
food by boiling it for short durations.
6. Involves immersing food in liquid and cooking it between 85° and 96°C
(185° and 205°F).

7. Directly exposing food to steam and is usually done in special steam

cookers. Steaming can also be done with a tightly wrapped or covered pan so
that the dish cooks in steam formed by its own moisture.
8. Using a small amount of liquid to cook food for a longer cooking period.
Braised food may either be brun (meat seared in a small amount of fat) or
blanc (when meat is not seared). The liquid can be water, stock, thin sauce or
a combination.
9. Using dry heat in an oven to cook vegetables, meats, dough, batters, fish
and poultry at 121° to 246°C (250° to 475°F), or higher.
10. Oven-cooking food in an uncovered pan to produce a well-browned
exterior and ideally a moist interior.
Cleanliness and Safety Practices
1. Preserving meat by salting and slowly cooking it in its own fat. The cooked
meat is then packed into a pot and covered with its cooking fat which seals
and preserves the meat.
2. Always wash hands with warm water and soap for 20 seconds before and
after handling food.
3. Avoid cross-contaminate. Keep raw meat, poultry, fish, and their juices
away from other food. After cutting raw meats, wash cutting board, utensils,
and countertops with hot, soapy water.
4. Cook western cuisines to the right temperature.
5. Refrigerate promptly
6. Always refrigerate perishable food within 2 hours—1 hour when the
temperature is above 90 °F (32.2 ºC).
7. Cook or freeze fresh poultry, fish, ground meats, and variety meats within
2 days; other beef, veal, lamb, or pork, within 3 to 5 days.
8. Perishable food such as meat and poultry should be wrapped securely to
maintain quality and to prevent meat juices from getting onto other food.
9. Cutting boards, utensils, and countertops can be sanitized by using a
solution of 1 tablespoon of unscented, liquid chlorine bleach in 1 gallon of
water.
10. Marinate meat and poultry in a covered dish in the refrigerator.
Cooking Techniques
1. Directly exposing food to radiant heat. It is usually done over heat such as
charcoal or an electric grill.
2. Basting food with a special sauce while grilling it in a covered pit. Use
very low temperature when using an oven or a pit, and a higher temperature
when barbequing using a grill or a broiler
3. Using a heat source coming from the top to cook food, and is often used to
finish a dish with melted butter, browned cheese or for brûlée treatments.
4. Cooking food on a solid surface called a griddle.
5. Prepare food in a sauté pan or skillet instead of on a griddle surface.
6. Cooking food in a moderate amount of fat in a pan over moderate heat
7. Using a small amount of fat and cooking food quickly. After a dish is
sautéed, a liquid such as wine or stock is often swirled in the pan to dissolve
browned bits of food sticking to the bottom. Called “deglazing”; the liquid
becomes a part of the sauce served with the sautéed dish.
8. Submerging food in hot fat. Many foods are dipped in breading or batter
before frying to provide a protective coating between food and fat. This also
helps give the dish crispness, color and flavor