Issue 25: Chef Buddy

Thread Content

Editor’s note: Food is the foundation of people’s lives; everyone needs to eat and drink, and cooking relies on the efforts of chefs. The profession of chef emerged very early; as early as in slave societies, there were already professional chefs. Chinese cooking culture has a long and glorious history. As **said: In Chinese culture, one is cooking and the other is traditional Chinese medicine – they are things of which we should be proud. With the advancement of China’s reform and opening up, a large number of Chinese chefs have gone abroad to share China’s excellent culinary culture around the world, earning worldwide acclaim. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that Chinese chefs have become outstanding ambassadors in the world for spreading China’s excellent culture. However, being a chef is extremely tough; not only is the workload heavy, but the tasks are also quite demanding. A chef’s work is different from ordinary jobs; often, they are in front of people at work and behind them when off work ； Do it in front of others, eat behind their backs. Sometimes, when things get busy, there’s not even time to have a proper meal. Editor’s Note for this issue: Being a chef is a rather ordinary profession, yet he treats it as precious as his own life, striving for excellence in everything he does. He’s like a wound-up clock, never stopping for a moment. Some might ask, is it really necessary to be so hard on oneself over such an ordinary position? To such questions, there was no need for words; he gave the best answer with his actions. He said that being a chef is first and foremost a matter of interest, and only secondly a means of making a living. In fact, there are very few people these days who have such a passion for their profession; his love for it stems from deep within him, starting with his mother’s bowl of braised pork… The bittersweet memories of pretending to be sick just to eat that braised pork. His full name is Tie Wuzheng. People say that his name, at first hearing, makes one think of \"Temujin\" – Genghis Khan Temujin was an outstanding figure in world history. Yet Ti Wu Zheng is an excellent chef specializing in Hunan cuisine. Everyone is used to calling him \"bro\" affectionately. Lao Tie was born into an ordinary family in Xiangtan, Hunan, in the late 1950s. People born in the 1950s went through three years of natural disasters, and most ordinary families led poor lives. In his memory, it was rare for his family to have meat to eat when he was young; only during the New Year would his mother prepare a famous Hunan dish: braised pork. “\"Stir-fried pork\" is the dish that my friend loves the most. Speaking of this, he recalls that \"back then, one had to use meat coupons to buy pork; it wasn’t like now when children can eat meat whenever they want. I remember during the New Year holidays as a child, there were seven siblings in our family, and a bowl of stir-fried pork contained only a little over ten pieces of meat – on average, each person could get less than two pieces. I was too reluctant to wait until the end to savor this rare delicacy...\" Talking about stir-fried pork seems to take my friend’s thoughts back to a day over thirty years ago. “It was someone’s birthday at the neighbor’s house, and the aroma of braised pork filled the kitchen; it really smelled wonderful. I was sixteen or seventeen at that time, in the stage of growing up. I really wanted to eat; to put it bluntly, every cell in my body seemed to want to burst out just to get a piece of meat. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t allowed. I kept thinking, trying to figure out a way to get some meat as soon as possible. I am the youngest in my family, and I know that my mother loves me the most, especially when I’m sick... It was December at that time, and the water was extremely cold; so I took a cold shower. The result was, of course, as I had expected: I developed a high fever the very next day, and my mother hurriedly prepared medicine for me to drink. I had no appetite because I was sick, so my mother asked what I wanted to eat. It was a question I had been looking forward to hearing, and without hesitation I replied, ‘Stir-fried pork.’ But I never expected that to be the last time I would taste my mother’s stir-fried pork; not long after that, she passed away forever due to a stroke! Now, every time I eat braised pork, I think of my mother and miss the delicious bowl of braised pork she used to make for me… Later on, the braised pork prepared by Lao Tie became a must-order specialty among diners. He returned home after being discharged from the military and worked as an apprentice in a restaurant. In 1985, he came back from the army with no job available; since he loved trying different foods, he began learning how to cook at home. One reason was his interest in good food, and the other was that this way his siblings would have something to eat when they returned home, thus helping to reduce the household chores for their father. During his time at home, he experimented on his own with various dishes – things like braised pork, fish head with chopped chili, pork stir-fried with chili, stem of water spinach stir-fried with minced pork, and ginger and pork slice soup... These are all traditional Hunan dishes that he is particularly good at preparing. At that time, only his family members tasted his dishes. Being eager to learn, he often went to restaurants near his home to watch the chefs cook and would even help out with some tasks. As a young man, Lao Ti was smart and eager to learn; he also had a polite and sensible way of speaking, constantly calling out “Master… Master.” The restaurant owner, seeing his kindness, intelligence, and hard work, took him on as an apprentice, which thus solved Lao Ti’s employment problem. My family also strongly supported my friend learning cooking; in those days, acquiring a skill that could help one make a living was the most practical thing to do. Apprenticeship life is monotonous and hard. At first, he could only assist his master. I’ve done everything from making lotus root coal to digging ditches, washing dishes, and picking vegetables. I get up at four or five in the morning to prepare breakfast, and I’m busy until eleven or twelve at night before I can rest. As the saying goes, “Old yin-yang, young chef.” ”Being a chef is a physically demanding job; to become a competent chef, one needs to exert a lot of physical effort, whether it’s preparing ingredients or cooking at the stove. On top of that, they have to endure high temperatures in front of the furnace as well as exposure to fumes from cooking oil. The characteristics of this type of professional work require chefs to have strong endurance. Some people vividly summarize this tolerance as the “four extremes”: being full, being hungry, being hot, and being cold. As a \"newcomer\" in a restaurant, these are indeed very challenging tasks. Cooking simultaneously is a skill. Apart from requiring physical strength, kitchen work is primarily a technical task that relies on manual skills. From identifying the ingredients to initial processing, from manually cutting and preparing them to mastering the heat and seasoning, specific technical skills are required, and each step presents varying degrees of difficulty. To become an excellent chef, he knows deep down that he needs to focus more on mastering the basic skills of cooking. Taking the spoon exercise as an example, when practicing the skills, he fills the spoon with sand. The more sand, the greater the wrist strength ； The greater the wrist strength, the more sand. When practicing the technique, place a flat-draped Qinzhou cloth in the pot and stir the spoon up and down to turn the cloth over while keeping it flat. The early days of learning cooking were tough; he practiced every morning, and by the end of the day he was so tired that he could hardly lift his arms. After some time, blisters formed on his hands, but in order to master the skills as soon as possible, he persevered despite the difficulties. To improve his knife skills, he practiced with potatoes and carrots. There is a saying in the culinary world: \"If you can’t cut with your hand, you can’t cut vegetables.\" To this day, he still has scars from knife cuts on his index and middle fingers. Both potatoes and radishes have associated costs; if one doesn’t want to use high-quality potatoes and radishes for training, they will collect potato skins and radish skins instead. Practice knife skills. He developed his own method of training: first, he cut the potatoes into thin slices and then into strips. After cutting each slice, he would stick it on newspaper; only if the small print on the newspaper could be seen was the slice considered acceptable. Then cut the potato slices into thin strips. Measured with a ruler, each filament is only an average of one millimeter – that’s the skill of knife work. Lao Tie’s back of the hands was also red and purple; that was from oil splashing on him while practicing stir-frying and frying. The opportunity to exercise is something that every apprentice rushes to take, so Master Tie arrives at the kitchen first every day to get started, fearing that he might be left behind by others. Hard work pays off; the master highly appreciated this diligent child, and finally, he got his wish and began to cook in the kitchen. No one’s success is smooth; there are always some challenges along the way. The dish prepared by my buddy for the first time he cooked was returned by the customer. The guy cooked it again. Only when he saw the customer’s satisfied expression after taking the first bite did his worries disappear, and a sense of pride at being recognized arose in him. This direct affirmation gave him endless motivation; he felt that his efforts had not been in vain, and he understood that only by working harder could he achieve more. In his free time, Master Tie also learned carving, which expanded the scope of his culinary skills and earned him unanimous recognition from everyone. I soon took over from my mentor, was able to work independently, and earned a little reputation. He stayed here for 5 years. Over those 5 years, he learned excellent cooking skills, and finally mastered them at the age of 26. By that time, he had already mastered a solid foundation in skills such as knife work, spoon work, fire control, hot dishes, cold platters, pastry-making, carving, restaurant service, nutritional planning, cost accounting, and more. The key to success lies in the details. My friend is good at preparing fish in various styles and flavors, and that’s not something special in itself. But what sets him apart from other chefs is that the fish he prepares tastes delicious; every time, the guests finish eating it until only the bones are left. Everyone thinks he has some secret tricks when it comes to ingredients and cooking methods. Later, my buddy finally revealed his secret. It turns out that his method of preparing fish isn’t very different from that of other chefs; the only difference is that he has to go to the market in person to select the fish every time he prepares it. Everyone was puzzled: “They’re all live fish; how can you tell any difference?” ”“Of course, there’s a difference between fish and their eyes; the fish I want must have that determined look, one that shows they would rather die than yield. ”His humorous reply further illustrated his meticulous and detail-oriented professional attitude. Actually, it’s not difficult to cook fish, but making it look appealing is not easy; the key to success lies in the details. By paying attention to details and treating them with care, surprises and success will follow. Strict quality control is applied to the ingredients. At the chef’s post, this person is always impartial; for example, he exercises strict control over the goods that are purchased daily for the kitchen. Once, a relative of the boss suggested using bamboo shoots that were cheap, but when this person saw those shoots, he found that they had been soaked in water and were quite old. Using such materials to prepare meals for customers would definitely result in poor-quality dishes, so without hesitation, he rejected the suggestion made by the boss’s relative. I thought this would offend the boss, but to my surprise, not only did he not criticize him, but he also praised him at the meeting of all employees, which further strengthened my friend’s determination to enforce strict management. Now, the guy has moved from the kitchen to the front hall, becoming a restaurant manager who is in charge of both the kitchen and the dining area. Great care is put into the development of new dishes, which are then taken home for further study. As a chef, he is willing to invest effort in creating new dishes, in order to satisfy the tastes of even the most discerning eaters. He often goes to various restaurants to try different kinds of delicious food, but what sets him apart is that he does so with specific questions and thoughts in mind. When ordering, he picks out those dishes whose flavors he isn’t yet familiar with, and he intentionally leaves some dishes unordered so that he can take them home and study them further. Those who have tried spicy crab know that this dish has a very unique flavor, especially with its strong aroma. Previously, Lao Tie never understood why this fragrance was so long-lasting. So he went to a famous spicy crab restaurant to give it a try, and packed some of the remaining crab to take home. First, he sniffed the leftover oil from the crab repeatedly, and then he looked for answers in professional cooking books and websites. It turns out that popular dishes like spicy crab and cold pot fish over the years are made by using a large amount of spices and seasonings, which are combined in specific proportions and then slowly cooked at low temperatures for an extended period of time. This process allows the aromatic compounds in the seasonings to dissolve into the oil, resulting in a unique flavor that is intensely fragrant and lingers for a long time. Understanding the principle behind the aroma of spicy crab will be of great help to my friends in their future cooking practices. For example, since then he has paid special attention to the production of various types of flavored oils, as he found that using such oils yields the most noticeable effect in terms of flavor enhancement. Modern city dwellers have the habit of asking for food to be packed when dining out*, but this man, despite such everyday practices, never forgot his roots as a chef. His dedication and serious attitude toward his work brought him unexpected rewards. “For me, being a chef is first and foremost a passion; it’s only secondarily a means of making a living.” I asked my friend, “You’ve been a chef for over 20 years, and although you’re now a head chef, you still have to endure the high temperatures and the fumes from the stoves. If there was a job that paid roughly the same as what you earn now but was less demanding than being a chef, would you change jobs? ”My buddy said, “No way. For me, being a chef is first and foremost a hobby; it’s only a means of making a living secondarily.” I became a chef purely because I love this profession; doing something I enjoy brings me happiness no matter how difficult or tiring it is. On the other hand, a job that interests me not at all is a source of suffering, even if it’s easy ” His firm answer reflected his love for the profession of a chef – a love that stemmed from deep within him, beginning with his mother’s bowl of \"braised pork\". For over two decades, driven by his interest in culinary culture, persistent pursuit, tireless dedication, and unique insight, he has been working in the food industry, navigating the ocean of delicious foods in terms of color, aroma, taste, and texture, fully enjoying the pleasures of cooking and living a colorful life of his own.