Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri

Chetti or Peranakan Indian cuisine is a hybrid of South Indian immigrants and Malay cuisines. The historical inter-cultural marriage between Indian traders and Malays, mainly local women during the 15th century and the Malacca Sultanate era has prompted the initial kickstart to the formation of the...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Mohd Fikri, Nurul Hanis
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English
Published:	2022
Subjects:	Cooking Malay
Online Access:	https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/76830/1/76830.pdf
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

id	my-uitm-ir.76830
record_format	uketd_dc
spelling	my-uitm-ir.768302023-04-18T02:40:44Z Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri 2022 Mohd Fikri, Nurul Hanis Cooking, Malay Chetti or Peranakan Indian cuisine is a hybrid of South Indian immigrants and Malay cuisines. The historical inter-cultural marriage between Indian traders and Malays, mainly local women during the 15th century and the Malacca Sultanate era has prompted the initial kickstart to the formation of the uniqueness of Chetti cuisine. This research focuses on identifying Chetti ethnic cuisine and to scrutinise the significance of its culinary heritage within the Chetti culture. The qualitative exploratory investigation was conducted mainly at the Chetti Village, Gajah Berang in Melaka through semi-structured interviews involving three different categories of Chetti informants: a sample of older Chettis, younger Chetti generations, and a mix of experts in Chetti culture from various backgrounds. A total of seven themes including three sub-themes were identified through thematic analysis. In essence, there are three major findings in this research. First, Chetti culinary heritage is an important cultural element of the various Chetti ceremonial events and festivals. Hence, it is an effective identity marker of the Chetti community. Second, the continuous social interaction with other ethnic groups particularly the Malays that went beyond the initial historical intercultural marriage has further infused the elements of Malay cuisine into the unique flavour and characteristics of the Chetti cuisine. Third, it was found that while the younger Chettis are proud and familiar with their ethnic cuisine, they are mostly unskilled in producing Chetti culinary heritage. The findings from this research will hopefully contribute to the scientific knowledge on minority ethnic cuisine particularly the Chetti cuisine as an important genetic code of Malaysian cuisine that mirrors the nation’s multicultural background. From a practical perspective, given the circumstances that Chetti cuisine is on the brink of extinction due to the dwindling of its population, it is crucial for the Chetti association and local government to continuously raise awareness about the hybrid cuisine. The findings indicate that cultural events involving exhibition of culinary heritage is effective in transmitting traditional food knowledge to the younger generation and subsequently assist in the preservation of traditional cuisines. 2022 Thesis https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/76830/ https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/76830/1/76830.pdf text en public masters Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management Abdul Rahman, Ahmad Esa
institution	Universiti Teknologi MARA
collection	UiTM Institutional Repository
language	English
advisor	Abdul Rahman, Ahmad Esa
topic	Cooking Malay
spellingShingle	Cooking Malay Mohd Fikri, Nurul Hanis Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri
description	Chetti or Peranakan Indian cuisine is a hybrid of South Indian immigrants and Malay cuisines. The historical inter-cultural marriage between Indian traders and Malays, mainly local women during the 15th century and the Malacca Sultanate era has prompted the initial kickstart to the formation of the uniqueness of Chetti cuisine. This research focuses on identifying Chetti ethnic cuisine and to scrutinise the significance of its culinary heritage within the Chetti culture. The qualitative exploratory investigation was conducted mainly at the Chetti Village, Gajah Berang in Melaka through semi-structured interviews involving three different categories of Chetti informants: a sample of older Chettis, younger Chetti generations, and a mix of experts in Chetti culture from various backgrounds. A total of seven themes including three sub-themes were identified through thematic analysis. In essence, there are three major findings in this research. First, Chetti culinary heritage is an important cultural element of the various Chetti ceremonial events and festivals. Hence, it is an effective identity marker of the Chetti community. Second, the continuous social interaction with other ethnic groups particularly the Malays that went beyond the initial historical intercultural marriage has further infused the elements of Malay cuisine into the unique flavour and characteristics of the Chetti cuisine. Third, it was found that while the younger Chettis are proud and familiar with their ethnic cuisine, they are mostly unskilled in producing Chetti culinary heritage. The findings from this research will hopefully contribute to the scientific knowledge on minority ethnic cuisine particularly the Chetti cuisine as an important genetic code of Malaysian cuisine that mirrors the nation’s multicultural background. From a practical perspective, given the circumstances that Chetti cuisine is on the brink of extinction due to the dwindling of its population, it is crucial for the Chetti association and local government to continuously raise awareness about the hybrid cuisine. The findings indicate that cultural events involving exhibition of culinary heritage is effective in transmitting traditional food knowledge to the younger generation and subsequently assist in the preservation of traditional cuisines.
format	Thesis
qualification_level	Master's degree
author	Mohd Fikri, Nurul Hanis
author_facet	Mohd Fikri, Nurul Hanis
author_sort	Mohd Fikri, Nurul Hanis
title	Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri
title_short	Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri
title_full	Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri
title_fullStr	Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri
title_full_unstemmed	Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri
title_sort	exploration of the chetti culinary heritage and practices: the peranakan indian cuisine of malaysia / nurul hanis mohd fikri
granting_institution	Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM)
granting_department	Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management
publishDate	2022
url	https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/76830/1/76830.pdf
_version_	1783736127416434688

Exploration of the Chetti culinary heritage and practices: the Peranakan Indian cuisine of Malaysia / Nurul Hanis Mohd Fikri

Similar Items