In Chinese cultural practice, fish epitomizes abundance and prosperity, often occupying a focal role in banquet cuisine, where the selection of species, the opulence of preparation, and the scale of the banquet signal social hierarchy and perform class aspirations. This work draws from an illustrated poster of commercial pelagic fish of Malaysia, produced by the Department of Fisheries Malaysia as a reference guide for fish harvesters and seafood enterprises. The official poster has been reappropriated into an all-fish restaurant menu, with the fish visually ‘cooked’ and ‘dressed’ in accordance with traditional Chinese culinary aesthetics. The rearticulation of empirical classifications based on morphology and measurement forms a visual catalogue of prepared dishes, elucidating the influence of cultural practices, culinary knowledge, and aesthetic conventions on understandings of the natural world.

Commercial Marine Fish (Pelagic) of Malaysia is an editioned print based on the original acrylic painting on poster from The World Is Your Restaurant (2021, The Back Room KL).