From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

The Qilu Young Chef Cooking Competition officially begins.

There are many young chefs who signed up to participate in the competition this year.

More than 3,000 young chefs passed the auditions and entered the official competition.

Fortunately, Feng Zhengming had already taken into account the issue that there might be a large number of participants when he discussed it with the provincial government many times in advance.

Therefore, the province made a plan in advance and specially arranged a larger venue for the competition.

The various stoves used on site are also sponsored and provided by specialized manufacturers.

After use, manufacturers will also recycle various stoves.

However, although there was a contingency plan, a competition with more than 3,000 people at once still brought considerable pressure to the organizing committee.

Fortunately, Feng Zhengming made some arrangements on the spot.

To ensure that young chefs receive fair evaluation.

After discussing with the provincial authorities, Feng Zhengming arranged for several Shandong cuisine masters and chefs to work in groups to simultaneously evaluate the dishes prepared by the young chefs on site.

More than 3,000 young chefs were divided into 100 groups
The scoring process for each group is separated throughout the process, and judges from different groups will not be allowed to compare scores.

The scoring criteria were also discussed by Feng Zhengming and the masters.

First of all, the cooking techniques are evaluated by scoring the skills of knife, fire and spoon.

Then the dishes themselves are scored on the five aspects of "color, aroma, taste, tableware and shape".

All reviews are scored separately.

Finally, there will be dedicated personnel to collect and count the scores.

A comprehensive score is then calculated and each group of participating young chefs are compared separately.

Young chefs from each group with the three highest-scoring dishes will be given priority to advance.

The remaining dishes will be compared together among the groups.

Finally, the young chefs with the top 300 dishes with the highest scores will advance.

In this way, six hundred young chefs who stood out in the first round were selected.

In the second round, the six hundred chefs were re-grouped again.

This time we were divided into six groups.

As always, each group will be judged separately.

The format is basically the same as the first round, and the top ten in the six groups can advance directly.

The rest will be put together for comparison, and the top 40 young chefs with the highest scores will advance.

After two rounds of screening, only the final one hundred young chefs remained.

At this point, these one hundred young chefs can be regarded as the one hundred best young chefs in Qilu.

In fact, after two rounds of competition, the remaining 100 young chefs are already good enough.

They are even qualified to study in the kitchen of any large restaurant in Qilu Province.

And they will also be focused on training by any large restaurant.

Of course, looking at the overall picture, the top 100 young chefs basically all have a good teacher.

Among them, young chefs from Quancheng Jufengde, Taifenglou and Feng Zhengming Huiquanlou accounted for the majority.

There are 30 young chefs from the three restaurants that participated in the competition and have successfully advanced to the top .

If we also count the few people working in Feng Zhengming’s two restaurants.

As many as twelve young chefs under Feng Zhengming were promoted, which is more than the number from Taifenglou, a long-established restaurant in Quancheng, and only one less than the number of young chefs from Jufengde.

Of course, this includes all young chefs.

In fact, Zhu Xu is a chef from Jubinyuan and the apprentice of Master Wang.

Xia Mingye is also a descendant of the Xia family.

Even Gu Zhicheng is the apprentice of Master Gao Feng Yigao from the island city.

Bao Feng, Guan Wei, Qi Jiale and Yao Zhenhui all have their own masters.

Therefore, the only young chefs who can be considered as trained by Feng Zhengming and his senior brothers are Xia Hui, Sun Hai, Zhang Lei, Yang Peng and Lu Chongshan.

However, there are five young chefs who are among the top 100 in the province.

This is enough to show that Feng Zhengming, the top scholar, and his several senior brothers have indeed reached the level of master chefs.

After days of competition, the top 100 young chefs in the province were decided and the competition entered a rest period.

Because next, the top 100 young chefs will have a more intense competition.

Especially this year's top young chef in the province.

This is a provincial top young chef who emerged from a competition among a sufficient number of young chefs across the province.

His contribution is absolutely remarkable in the whole province of Shandong and among all the young Shandong cuisine chefs.

Therefore, the competition among the final 100 young chefs will be even more intense.

Therefore, we also arranged for the young chefs to rest so that they can face the final challenge with a more energetic state of mind.

The young chefs can rest, but Feng Zhengming, the province, the Chefs Association and the organizers cannot.

The province called them together again to discuss the details of the next competition.

At the meeting, everyone still looked at Feng Zhengming first.

Feng Zhengming felt a little embarrassed facing everyone's gazes.

“You don’t have to look at me like that. In fact, after this week’s competition, I believe everyone has seen that our province’s young chefs are truly talented.

Although only 100 people were selected to compete for the top prize, the other young chefs are equally excellent. "

A representative of a sponsor who was present smiled and said: "What Feng Zhuangyuan said is very right, so after watching the competition, our company thought we could recruit some young chefs to work in our company cafeteria, and the salary we offer is definitely not bad.

And our company also has the idea of ​​supporting some young chefs to open restaurants and hotels.”

Feng Zhengming immediately clapped his hands in applause.

"Okay, this is great news. Now it seems like a great deal for you to sponsor this competition, doesn't it?"

The sponsor representatives at the scene looked at each other, and then all laughed.

At Feng Zhengming's suggestion, this competition directly recruited sponsors.

At the beginning, there were stoves, kitchen utensils, and some cooking oil, soy sauce, and seasoning manufacturers.

Other companies have shown little interest in sponsoring cooking competitions.

Later, Feng Zhengming felt that this was not enough, so he used his third uncle's connections to find some companies from other industries to join the ranks of sponsors.

Now, all the sponsors that Feng Zhengming brought in are very grateful to Feng Zhengming in their hearts.

If he hadn't brought everyone here, these manufacturers would definitely not have sponsored the competition.

Without sponsoring this competition, they might not realize that there are so many outstanding young chefs across the province.

In fact, several sponsors have already contacted the young chef privately.

When they found the young chef, it did not mean they were willing to hire him to work in their factory canteen.

This means that they are willing to invest in young chefs to open independent restaurants and hotels.

Feng Zhengming knew all about their behind-the-scenes tricks, because many sponsors approached Xia Hui and her team privately.

Among them, the most people are looking for Xia Mingye.

The reason was that during the competition, someone leaked that Xia Mingye was the heir of the Xia family of Kongfucai.

It was also revealed that Xia Mingye is now learning cooking from Feng Zhengming.

The Xia family's descendant of Confucius cuisine learned cooking from the nation's top scholar.

These two points are enough to make him be looked at differently by many people.

Xia Mingye was looked for by several groups of people.

Almost all of them hoped to invest in him, let him use the Xia family's Kongfu cuisine as his signature dish, hype up his cooking skills with Feng Zhengming, open him an independent restaurant, or even open a large restaurant for him.

Xia Mingye was so scared that he went straight to Feng Zhengming for help.

Today Feng Zhengming also plans to take this opportunity to talk about this matter.

So when talking about this, Feng Zhengming simply mentioned this matter to the sponsors.

“You all want to support our outstanding young chefs. I think the provincial leaders and our Chefs Association agree with this. We also hope that more outstanding young chefs can be recognized and supported.

However, you still need to understand the abilities of young chefs first and not force them to improve.”

Feng Zhengming's sudden change of subject surprised the sponsors present.

The provincial leaders, senior chefs, judges of the competition, and people from the Chefs Association who were present were also a little surprised.

Everyone could hear that Feng Zhengming clearly had something else in mind.

And I saw him speak directly to the sponsors.

It was obvious that it was targeting the sponsors.

Except for the provincial leaders, no one else here would dare to speak to the sponsor in this way.

Only Feng Zhengming was truly open about it.

The sponsor representatives looked at each other, not knowing how to respond to Feng Zhengming's words.

Feng Zhengming continued speaking.

“I know that you have been contacting young chefs privately these days, and you may have offered a lot of favorable conditions.

We are all certainly happy that young chefs are valued in this way. This shows that everyone recognizes the cooking skills of young chefs and that our Shandong cuisine has successors.

But the game is not over yet, I think the next game should still be fair and just.

The outcome of the competition cannot be influenced by the fact that a young chef has promised you or signed a contract with you.

Then the significance of continuing the game seems to become less important."

This time, Feng Zhengming did not explain his words.

But probably everyone present could hear the words.

I understand what Feng Zhengming meant.

Some of the sponsor representatives quickly expressed their opinions.

"Please rest assured, Mr. Feng, we are just looking for some outstanding young chefs in advance. We will not interfere with the results of the competition. We also hope that the competition will be absolutely fair and just."

After one company expressed its stance, representatives of other sponsors also expressed their views.

Everyone said they would not interfere with the fairness of the competition.

Despite the sponsors' statements, Feng Zhengming still suggested that some adjustments should be made to the judging process for subsequent competitions.

“First of all, I will no longer serve as a judge in the following competitions. I think the judges of the professional group should still be served by several veterans. Of course, thank you for your hard work.

In addition, Chef Hou from Beijing brought an observation group this time. I think we can also invite Chef Hou and the Beijing chefs in the observation group to serve as judges for the professional group.

In addition to the professional group, we will also set up a non-professional judging panel. We will ask several sponsors to send representatives, and we will also arrange some media reporters to form a non-professional judging panel with you. "

Feng Zhengming's adjustment of the judges was somewhat unexpected to everyone.

Originally, everyone thought that Feng Zhengming had pointed out some of the sponsors' private actions.

He will definitely serve as the head of the judging panel himself, and the judging will be rigorous.

Unexpectedly, Feng Zhengming actually divided the judges into professional and non-professional groups.

He also asked sponsors to send representatives to serve as judges in the non-professional group.

For a moment, everyone was a little confused about what Feng Zhengming meant.
Everyone was silent for a while, and then the provincial leader present spoke.

"Zhengming, what is your intention in making such an arrangement? Can you explain it to us all?"

Feng Zhengming smiled slightly: "Leader, I made this arrangement to ensure fairness and justice."

Everyone present was obviously dissatisfied with this answer.

Master Cui spoke again: "Okay, stop keeping us in suspense and tell us more."

Feng Zhengming gave an explanation decisively.

“It’s very simple. In the past, when we were competing, professional judges would judge the competitions. For example, national-level judges from Beijing, or my master and his masters would be the judges.

This is indeed professional enough and can judge a dish from the perspective of cooking techniques, knife skills, and cooking skills.

But professional judges often pay too much attention to technique and consider issues too much from a professional perspective.

We may overlook the most fundamental quality of a dish: whether it tastes good or not.”

Hearing this, everyone nodded frequently, thinking that what Feng Zhengming said made sense.

Feng Zhengming went on to say: "This time our provincial young chef competition has brought together outstanding young chefs from all over the province.

Now there are only one hundred best young chefs left in the province. I think at this time, judging simply from a professional perspective may not be enough.

So I suggest adding a non-professional judging panel, asking representatives of sponsors and media reporters to rate the products based on the five most intuitive qualities of ‘color, aroma, taste, and shape’.”

Feng Zhengming smiled and said, "The professional group requires absolute objectivity, while the non-professional group is completely subjective."

After listening to Feng Zhengming's words, everyone present couldn't help but whisper to each other.

Even several provincial leaders and senior masters were discussing in low voices.

At this moment, everyone felt that Feng Zhengming always had some subversive ideas, which sometimes really made everyone overwhelmed.

But this time, his idea still won the approval of provincial leaders and masters.

However, while agreeing with his idea, the province still let him serve as the head of the judging panel.

"We believe that our national champion can be absolutely fair and just, so you will still be the head of the judging panel. You will supervise the other judges and ensure that all judges are fair and just."

Feng Zhengming was really at a loss whether to laugh or cry.

He originally wanted to give the job of judge to someone else.

He can take this opportunity to be lazy.

By the way, I'm also looking for some young chefs to prepare for opening a branch next year.

But he didn't expect that even though he wanted to hide, he couldn't.

Provincial leaders and veterans still have to keep an eye on him.

In fact, the representatives of the sponsors present also had orders, and they all had to absolutely support Feng Zhengming, the top scorer.

Therefore, in the end, Feng Zhengming was still unanimously approved as the head of the judging panel. (End of this chapter)