From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

The next day, the event organizer organized all the chefs to gather in a very large banquet hall in the hotel.

This time, hundreds of top chefs from all over the country gathered together.

It can be said that the banquet hall truly gathers the best group of chefs in the country today.

Besides Feng Zhengming and Jiang Chengzhe, there were others at the scene.

The youngest chef is already in his forties.

We have all been immersed in the culinary industry for many years.

Yesterday the old masters were called together for a closed-door meeting.

The rules of this national cooking exchange competition were also agreed upon at the meeting.

In short, the first thing to do is to let chefs from all over the country demonstrate their basic skills.

The vice president of the Culinary Association who presided over the conference said: "You are all the top chefs from all over the country, and this year's national competition has chefs from Hong Kong.

So after our closed-door discussion yesterday, we decided to let you start from the most basic fundamentals.

The basic skills are divided into: knife skills, fire skills, spoon skills, and there are also soup making, carving, and white case.

Each item will be scored separately, and the final combined score will be ranked from high to low. "

After a brief pause, the vice president continued, "After the basic skills competition, there will be a cooking exchange of classic dishes.

This exchange is based on chef teams from different cuisines. You need to prepare a banquet separately and make some of the classic dishes from your region in a standardized manner.

After the entire cooking process, you need to summarize and report it, and the Culinary Association and the Ministry of Labor will summarize it.

A collection of recipes of classic Chinese culinary dishes will be published later.

Of course, after publication, the sales revenue will be equally distributed to your local cooking associations."

It can be said that these two types of competitions and exchanges make all participating chefs feel that they are very good projects.

Whether it is a competition of basic skills or a cooking exchange of classic dishes from all over the world.

They all emphasize one point, which is to compile classic dishes from all over the country and also to have a unified standard.

It is obvious that we need to establish a standard that will convince the culinary industry across the country when judging the quality of chefs and restaurants in the future.

In the eyes of all chefs, this is a very good thing.

After all, for ordinary diners, it may not be possible to distinguish the technical level of a dish, as well as the true quality of a dish.

If a national cooking exchange competition is held, a standard will be established that is accepted nationwide.

In this way, there will be a basis for evaluating a chef's ability and the quality of a restaurant's dishes.

Having a standard to rely on makes it easier to convince everyone.

It is also a good thing for the future promotion of Chinese cuisine.

After these two competitions and exchanges.

The vice president said: "After these two items, there will be the official competition, which will last for three days. Each chef will have the opportunity to prepare three dishes, and the judges will score each of your three dishes.

In the end, dishes with higher comprehensive scores will be selected into gold, silver and bronze awards.”

After listening to the vice president's announcement, the entire process of the national competition has been roughly explained.

On the whole, it seems to have borrowed some of the processes of Shandong cuisine selection.

But we also added some things that are unique to the national competition.

It is a competition that tests a chef's basic skills, his ability to cook traditional classic dishes, and finally his own creative and personalized dishes.

After the competition, a chef’s overall ability can be more fully demonstrated.

After the vice president announced all the rules, he gave a few words to the chefs participating in the competition.

“You can all be said to be master chefs from all over the country. I hope you can truly demonstrate your level of master chefs and set a good example for future generations.

We must also set an example and work together to promote and develop Chinese cuisine.”

After listening to the vice president's words, the chefs on the scene also realized the responsibilities they shouldered.

This time their performance in the national competition was more than just representing their respective regions and cuisines.

We must also work together to inherit and develop Chinese cuisine.

For the chefs who come to participate in the competition, they actually have similar pursuits in their hearts.

As the vice president of the Culinary Association said.

The chefs participating in the competition this time are the real backbone of Chinese cuisine from all over the country.

In addition to Feng Zhengming and Jiang Chengzhe, two relatively young chefs.

The other chefs are all masters in charge of cooking.

They have been working in this position for nearly half their lives.

For them, cooking has been integrated into their lives and is a part of their lives.

At present, supported by the gradually improving domestic economic environment.

More and more people are pursuing more delicious food.

This gives many skilled chefs more opportunities to showcase their skills and talents.

They can use their good skills to get a better job and bring them higher income.

But at the same time, some people in the cooking industry who do not have good skills and take the opportunity to make money through other means have begun to emerge.

Therefore, this year's national competition will establish a set of domestic cooking skills and catering standards so that more people can understand Chinese cuisine and have their own set of judging criteria.

How do we make more people understand what the “color, aroma, taste, shape and utensils” of Chinese cuisine are?
This is also the main purpose of this national competition to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the chefs currently working in various parts of the country.

Announced the official start of the National Cooking Skills Exchange Competition.

Next, the hotel arranged separate private rooms for the chef groups from various places to allow them to have discussions.

On the one hand, the team leaders gave instructions to the participating chefs.

Let the participating chefs understand the details that need to be paid attention to in the next competition.

On the other hand, it also allows the participating chefs and masters to discuss which classic dishes to make when exchanging ideas about classic dishes.

The menus of chef teams from various regions need to be reported to the event organizers in advance.

Feng Zhengming followed everyone and entered the discussion room of the Shandong cuisine chef group.

The two masters, Su and Sun, first talked about some process details of the competition and some judging criteria in the competition.

Master Su said: "The basic skills competition is similar to the process of our previous provincial selection competition, which requires you to compete in six aspects: knife skills, fire skills, spoon skills, carving, soup making, and plain cooking."

Lin Bosheng asked, "We are not professional plain pastry chefs, so it will be quite difficult for us to compete in plain pastry."

Master Sun said: "Although none of you are professional plain-style chefs, if you are the head chef in the kitchen, you should all understand plain-style cooking.

Besides, since it is a basic skill, I will definitely not have too high requirements for your white case. "Master Su said: "The most important thing is the five aspects of knife skills, fire skills, spoon skills, carving and soup making."

Master Sun said: "Knife skills, fire skills, spoon skills, carving and soup making, these five items are very important, although you have all competed in the previous selection competition.

But in the national competition, the competition in these five events will be more intense, especially since the requirements this time are "standard".

Therefore, your knife skills, fire skills, spoon skills, carving skills, and soup making skills must be up to standard. "

Jufengde's master chef Kong Xingli asked: "Master, uncle, what are our standards?"

Master Su said seriously: "First, the cutting must be standard enough, such as how thick the strips should be, how big the dices should be, it must be cut accurately and evenly."

Master Sun took over the conversation: "The second thing is speed, because you are not apprentices anymore, you are all chefs, you must finish it within the specified time."

Master Su added: "As for carving, you will be given a task and asked to complete the required carving."

Master Sun continued, "When making soup, you will be tested on how to make everything from raw soup to clear soup, and there will also be corresponding milk soup, especially the seasoning of the soup, you must pay attention."

This series of basic skills competitions actually put considerable pressure on Feng Zhengming and his team.

Although before coming to the national competition, they also conducted intensive training on the corresponding basic skills in the trials.

But similarly, the other chefs participating in the national competition this time must have received corresponding training.

They are all master chefs who have been working around the chopping board and stove in the kitchen for many years.

In terms of basic skills, everyone is pretty much the same.

When the basic skills are similar, it is not easy to determine the winner.

Therefore, the pressure on everyone’s shoulders is bound to be considerable.

The two masters could see the pressure everyone was under.

The old masters looked at each other, and then spoke up to encourage each other.

"Don't be too stressed, as long as you can show what needs to be shown."

"Yes, even if they are a little bit inferior to you, they are all masters from all over the country. A temporary victory or defeat does not mean that you are definitely weaker than them. Just ask them for advice in the future."

Obviously, the two masters still hope that everyone can cheer up and face the battle.

You have to show your own things. Even if you lose to your opponent, you have to be able to recognize your own shortcomings and study harder.

Master Su finally said: "You must remember that you are participating in the National Cooking Skills Exchange Competition, and communication is the key to this competition.

When we talked with the chefs leading the teams from all over the country yesterday, we all hoped that you could all communicate more through this competition so that the culinary skills from all over the country can be better integrated.

Ultimately, we will build a set of unified standards of our own, which is what the competition really needs.”

After listening to Master Su's words, Feng Zhengming and his friends understood the key to this trip.

Next, everyone discussed together how to deal with the competition and communication.

Of course, there is another very important point, which is that we need to discuss and come up with a standard banquet of classic Shandong cuisine.

Lin Bosheng started by saying, "If it's our classic Shandong cuisine banquet, we must first have classic Shandong cuisine, such as nine-turn large intestine, scallion-fried sea cucumber, sweet and sour carp, stir-fried kidney, water chestnuts in milk soup, chicken slices floating in oil, braised prawns, eight-treasure bag chicken, and four-happiness meatballs, right?"

Lin Bosheng listed nine dishes in one breath, all of which can be said to be classic Shandong cuisine.

Basically, when people mention the name of a dish, the first thing that comes to mind is Shandong cuisine.

Everyone agrees with these nine dishes because they are indeed representative dishes of Shandong cuisine.

Feng Zhengming thought for a moment and said, "Can the milk soup with cattails be replaced with milk soup with elbow-flowered Chinese cabbage? It's hard to get cattails in this season."

Sun Fenggui from Taifenglou agreed immediately: "Yes, if we change it to pork elbow and cabbage in milk soup, we just happen to have a pork elbow dish."

Kong Xingli continued, "These alone are not enough to make a banquet. We need four more cold dishes."

Master Sun said, "Cold dishes. Zhengming can use your marinated platter when the time comes."

Feng Zhengming asked with a smile: "Is it the cold dish used in the selection competition?"

Master Su nodded: "Yes, that's it, let them see the knife skills of our Shandong cuisine chefs."

A participating chef suddenly asked: "Do you want to compete with the Huaiyang cuisine chef?"

Master Su suddenly smiled and said, "Chefs of Huaiyang cuisine? They may be more troublesome because they are in Jiangsu Province. Su cuisine is a faction, and Huaiyang is a separate cuisine.

There is also a dispute over the authenticity of Huaiyang cuisine between the two cities of Huaicheng and Yangcheng in Jiangsu Province.

Plus, their provincial capital is Jinling, and they have a set of Jinling cuisine, so it might be more troublesome in Su Province."

In fact, it is just as Master Su said.

Among the discussion rooms in various provinces, the discussion group in Jiangsu Province was much more intense.

Jiangsu Province is the province with the largest number of chefs coming this time.

Each of their cities sent several chefs to participate in the national competition.

The key is that the chefs from each city only represent their own city.

Therefore, there is absolutely no way for Su cuisine to unify the entire province.

It can even only represent one place, Suzhou.

As a result, in the discussion room of Su Province, there were really huge differences between the parties.

The point of disagreement is that each city requires a separate local banquet.

In particular, Huaicheng and Yangcheng, who consider themselves to be the authentic Huaiyang cuisine, both stated that they represent Huaiyang cuisine and cannot be classified as Su cuisine.

As Jinling was the provincial capital, the chefs they sent were unwilling to cooperate with the chefs from Sucheng.

The Jinling chef thought that they were from the provincial capital, and since it was Su cuisine, it should be mainly Jinling cuisine, with other cities in Su Province each serving a dish, and finally combining them into a banquet.

In this situation where no one was willing to give in, the discussion in Su Province completely turned into an argument.

Neither party was able to convince the other.

In particular, chefs from Huaicheng and Yangcheng have each stated that they represent the authentic Huaiyang cuisine.

Then the chefs from Jinling requested that Su cuisine should be based on their own cuisine, with chefs from other places assisting them.

However, the chefs in Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou were obviously not convinced.

I think they each have their own representative dishes of Su cuisine.

The dispute between the parties was so intense that even the senior masters who led the team were unable to reconcile.

Because among the four master chefs leading the team, two are masters of Huaiyang cuisine, one is from Jinling, and the other is from Suzhou.

Several masters could not reach a complete consensus on such a combination.

In the Su Province discussion room, there was endless debate among the various parties.

The chefs from other places gradually came up with a complete set of plans, but the one in Su Province was the only one left without any result. (End of this chapter)