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Researched over the course of 9 years, When Cooking was a Crime explores the illicit act of Masak –the culture of illegal cooking in one’s cell or dormitory – within the Singapore prison system of the 1970s and 80s. Shedding light upon the unique recipes, tools, and methods devised by the inmates to prepare suppers in the confines of their cells, the publication also investigates new meanings of food within the deprived environments of the Singapore prisons and Drug Rehabilitation Centres (DRCs) of the time.