Fun with Food Rights

So let us have some fun with the food rights just suggested by the incredulous Malaysian Tourism Minister.

I copy the Vox Populi Column of Malaysiakini here for all of us to dig into the delicacies of Malaysian food fun emanating from the Minister's 'no-brainer' suggestion.

Let's begin....

'Hainan chicken rice will be called Ng Yen Yen chicken rice from now on? Will there be royalty payments when we eat chicken rice?'

Nasi lemak, laksa to get gov't patent?

Lau Yin Leong: Bravo. Keep up the good work. There are a lot of signature dishes Malaysia has and it is better to register the intellectual property rights to these dishes lest the Indonesians will make another claim.

Teh: Hainan chicken rice will now be called Ng Yen Yen chicken rice from now on? Will there be royalty payments when we eat chicken rice?

Malay Curry Mee

Bah Kut Teh

Char Keoy Tiau

Curry Mee

Grilled Steak

Zainon Ahmad: Can you imagine Umno and PAS agreeing to have the bak kut teh as a national heritage dish. This will lead to demonstrations with p.. heads! I wonder what action we will take against those countries who do not label these dishes as Malaysian.

SRR: What? Now we want to fight for food rights too? Will we ever learn? This is so embarrassing. If Thailand and other countries do the same, there goes all of our options. We will have to travel to Thailand for tom yam, the US for western food and other countries to get other varieties.

Mok Lay Yong: Great, so now I can't cook nasi lemak, laksa and the like without the approval of the patent holder? Which crony gets to hold the patent in trust now? Bright idea, (Tourism Minister) Ng Yen Yen, bright idea!

Malaysian for Malaysia: Doesn't matter about the patent, when people know the best nasi lemak is in Malaysia, they will only eat Malaysian nasi lemak. Ng Yen Yen, go do something more productive like making sure our tourism advertising highlight Malaysia and Malaysian culture only.

Indrani Kopal: What about roti canai and nasi kandar? Why aren't they in the list? They are ours too.

John Smith: Hainanese chicken rice is Malaysian? That will be news for the people of Hainan, where it remains a local speciality even today. Even the origin of chilli crab is not documented and could well be Singapore.

Why doesn't the government try dealing with the many serious problems facing the country like snatch thieves praying on inbound tourists,instead of wasting time with this kind of nonsense?

Myop101: Don't forget Penang prawn mee, char kuey teow and rojak.

Charley: This is one of the silliest things I have come across. Is it possible to patent a cooking recipe? Has the minister done her homework? I wonder how to patent a "culture".

After making claims, how to enforce it? For what purpose? To prevent other nationals from cooking it? Isn't culture something that is universal?

What happens if the Thais start patenting tom yam? Do we have to remove all tom yam from our menus? What about satay? Can't the Chinese in Sinkiang make "kebab" so similar to satay once we patent it?

It appears that the minister wants to do this just because she wants to "retaliate" against the Indonesian ministers, or copy them.

So,now that you seen the barrage of ridicule,who is going to bell the cat?