Medan, Indonesia – When Michelle Tew, owner of Malaysian-based food company Homiah, received a cease and desist letter from celebrity American-Korean chef David Chang last month, she felt “sadness and betrayal.”
The letter informed Tew that she had 90 days to stop using the term “chili crunch” on the labels of her sambal — a chili-based condiment popular throughout Southeast Asia — as Chang had trademarked the phrase.
“David Chang is such a big name in the Asian-American food community and it felt very personal, even though I don’t know him personally,” Tew told Al Jazeera.
“The Asian food community really is like a family, and in pursuing a woman-owned business, in even thinking about it and not having a friendly conversation first, I really wondered where their compassion was.”
Chang, who owns the Momofuku restaurant chain in the US and has since abandoned his trademark claim, began selling jars of “Chili Crunch” in 2020, but is far from the first person to bring such a product to market.
Chili-based condiments have been used throughout Asia since time immemorial.
In English, they have several names, including chili crunch, chili crisp and chili oil, depending on the consistency and proportions of the ingredients.
Tew, who learned to cook from his Malaysian grandmother, chose to call his product “Sambal Chili Crunch” as sambal, which typically includes ingredients such as chilli, shrimp paste, garlic and palm sugar, is not widely known outside from Southeast Asia and she needed to find a way to explain this to a foreign audience.
The practice of trying to trademark generic food terms is not unique to Chang or the U.S. food and beverage industry.
Arie Parikesit, a culinary guide who runs the food and tourism business Kelana Rasa, said that although Chang tried to “monopolize” the term “chili crunch,” there had been similar cases in his native Indonesia.
“A similar thing happened in the Indonesian food and beverage world when the term ‘kopitiam’ [coffee shop] it was accepted as a trademark right filed by a company that had been created recently and forced decades-old classical kopitiam entities not to use this trademark,” Parikesit told Al Jazeera.
“Trade name monopolies like this are clearly unhealthy and, instead of promoting Asian cuisine more broadly, as David Chang and Momofuku did, they create a bad atmosphere among Asian food and condiment manufacturers.”
“Small heritage businesses will also be affected. At a time when collaboration is key, this kind of old-fashioned rivalry deserves to be left behind,” he added.
The need for a collaborative approach is underscored by the difficulty Southeast Asian food and beverage players face when trying to enter outside the region.
Tew of Homiah said Southeast Asian food is not widely known in many parts of the world, especially compared to other cuisines.
“If you go to a supermarket in the US, there will be two entire aisles dedicated to olive oil, which is just one product. So you might find half an aisle or stall that contains food from ‘other’ places, like Southeast Asian cuisine mixed with other cuisines like Mexican.
Jun Yi Loh, a Malaysian food writer and recipe developer, agreed that Malaysian food terms are not necessarily easy to understand, which is why descriptors like “chili crunch” need to be used.
“I have long held the view that one of the main reasons why Malaysian food has not exploded in the same way as Singaporean or Thai food in recent years is that our food is not as easy to describe or package in a sort of elevator tone,” Loh told Al Jazeera.
After weeks of protests over Momofuku’s cease-and-desist letters, which were sent to dozens of small businesses across the U.S., Chang pushed back last week, saying on The Dave Chang Show podcast: “I understand why people are upset and I’m really sorry.”
In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, Momofuku said: “When we created Chili Crunch, we wanted a name that differentiated our product from the broader chili crisp category. We believed the name ‘Chili Crunch’ reflected the uniqueness of our product, which combines flavors from multiple culinary traditions, and purchased a pre-existing trademark for the name.”
Momofuku said it received feedback from the community and now understands that the term “chili crunch” has a broader meaning.
“We have no interest in ‘owning’ a culture’s terminology and will not apply the brand going forward,” the company said.
While Chang may have pulled off a U-turn, the episode left an unpleasant taste in the mouths of some who promote Southeast Asian cuisine abroad. Loh said the disaster brought to light the legal difficulties that can arise when running a company in a foreign market.
“This will definitely influence the minds of small business owners,” he told Al Jazeera.
“I believe this event will be remembered as a frivolous affair, started by Momofuku and David Chang with tons of arrogance and very little thought,” said Auria Abraham, owner of Auria’s Malaysian Kitchen, a food company that sells sambal, spice mixes and Kaya. she told Al Jazeera.
Abraham, who moved to the US in the 1990s before launching his first product, Hot Chilli Sambal, in 2013, said the Momofuku furore has sparked a wider debate about who “owns” food.
“We have to accept and understand that no country, entity or person can claim things like condiments, ingredients or recipes,” she said.
Abraham said Malaysian food was shaped for centuries by immigrants who brought recipes that were shared, adopted and then modified to reflect the ingredients available in different regions.
“With that in mind, despite a food’s distinct origins, it is now the culture of everyone it has touched,” she said. “And that’s the beauty of sharing food.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
