WOSH.WORLD and Allspice Institute Launches New Book for Charity
Allspice Institute has always paid respect to the cultural and heritage of the local community by teaching students recipes that have been passed down from tradition. At the same time, the hospitality school has in recent years embraced the wonders of technology and innovation, which can be seen implemented in its teaching techniques as well as how it presents its recipes to people at home. Now, it combines the elements of history and technology thanks to their partnership with WOSH (World of Streetfood and Hawkerpreneurship), a company that is looking to find ways to push forth preserving street food and the concepts of hawker entrepreneurship across the world. It’s latest project? A launch to promote its newest book: WOSH.WORLD: Future Ready.
But what exactly is WOSH.WORLD, and how does its newest book plan to discuss the future of hawkers and street food? Well, to put it simply, WOSH.WORLD is a group that is looking towards social purpose, with a strong focus on a topic close to our hearts: food. More importantly, the founding members of the company are looking to, “preserve and ensure the continued survival of traditional StreetFood and Hawker culture.” And much of the research, ideas and stories were collected into their first book looking to explore ideas on how we can make street food vendors ready for the future. It’s in line with the push towards Singapore as a Smart Nation, using technology and digitalisation to push forth every aspect of everyday life. Now, with the success of the first book, the team is looking to expand a little more on their ideas, with more essays and articles from international sources in their second book.
The book shares various strong ideas, topics and great arguments pushing forth a strong case towards preserving the future of cultural and street food, while inculcating a passion for the future. This means that they touch on some ideas that are currently trending amongst the general public when it comes to food, including the use of alternative meats and proteins as a replacement ingredient for certain dishes, the use of the Metaverse to showcase different street food all over the world, and the use of NFTs to preserve hawker recipes. There is even talk about transcending food from cultural standards to a more futuristic agenda. All in all, WOSH.WORLD is looking to dispense new ideas to the general public.
That was the attitude taken by both WOSH.WORLD and Allspice Institute at the book launch today, which took not just the opportunity to launch the books but also featured the ink sketches and paintings of local artist Tham Pui San, which have been placed on display and exhibited to be sold.
“We feel like this is a good validation of the concept which brings art, food and social causes together, an unusual one, which makes this event so meaningful,” explains Mr Victor Ng, Chariman and Co-Founder of WOSH.WORLD. “The idea is not to just sell them but to raise funds and share my passions with people who aren’t sure of themselves to do something creative through simple means, all they need is someone to guide you,” says Mr Tham. Throughout his career, he’d found guidance through the many museums and art places he’d visited in countries where he was posted to throughout his professional career, and in his retirement age, he’d chosen to take on art full time.
Proceeds of the tickets to the book launch and the paintings would go to the Served with Love programme, a part of Circle of Friends, an organisation that cooks and distributes meals to those that need it in Bukit Merah. “We’re hoping to continue with this theme of helping the people we have in Singapore. There are people with real needs in Singapore, especially with inflation coming in,” explains Mr Clarence Ling, Principal of Allspice Institute. “We want people who have spare time and energy to help us. This event has shown that food is really the link that brings people together, whether you’re rich or poor, and even through art.” The event culminated in a cooking demonstration by Head Chef Anup Kumar, who showed how to make dam briyani to the captive audience, as well as live food stations that served local favourites.
