The Pentium Era - South to North

"Speak quickly, tell me quickly, master, what is this little show?" Huijuan drank half the glass of wine and urged.

"This small business of selling food covers the dishes, the cuisine, and us as chefs." Fatty Fu said, "Meituo, do you know what is the most difficult thing for us chefs to learn?"

"Carved flowers? I see there is a carving master in the hotel. He can carve a lot of radish flowers in one go. If it were me, I wouldn't be able to carve one in a day." Huijuan said.

"That's just a small skill. In our chef profession, those who do carving are not considered chefs. At most, they are just technicians."

"Is that, is that deboning?" Huijuan thought for a while and said, "I heard my father say that he saw a restaurant master who could take out the bones of a whole chicken. It’s still intact and the skin is not broken at all.”

Fatty Fu laughed and said, "That's a basic skill. It can only be used to fool a layman. I'll teach you tomorrow and you'll learn it in an hour."

"Really?" Huijuan asked.

"Of course, deboning a chicken is easier than shredding potatoes. If you want to shred potatoes evenly, you have to work for several days and cut off several baskets of potatoes."

If these two skills, which she seemed to be very impressive to, were not difficult to learn, Huijuan could not think of anything else that was more difficult to learn in the kitchen. She asked:

"Master, tell me, what is the most difficult thing to learn as a chef?"

"That's taste. This is the hardest thing to learn, and it can't be taught even by a master. If you give the same ingredients and seasonings to ten chefs of the same level, you can guarantee that the dishes they make will be different."

Fatty Fu took a sip of tea and continued:

"I'm afraid even scientists can't figure out how these different flavors come out. The heat is different, light soy sauce is added early and light soy sauce is added later, and what temperature of oil can be used in the pot. There is no standard for these, and there is no way to quantify them. , I tell you that the oil temperature is 80% hot. You know, what is 80% hot? You can’t just take a thermometer and insert it into the pot to measure it, right?

"But each of these affects the taste of the dish, and even a little bit is not enough. Therefore, taste cannot be found in books, and teachers cannot teach it. The most the teacher can do is teach you what should be added to this dish. It's hard to tell how much to add. How much is a little? How much is two spoons? In the same way, one spoon can be either light or full. I just can't teach it.

"If you don't have a chef, you have to bring measuring cups, measuring cylinders and thermometers to work. Even if you bring them, it's useless. Now that you have the measurements, what about the time for cooking? Do you need to bring a stopwatch? For cooking, it only takes a few minutes. , by the time you finish doing this, either the meat will be old or the vegetables will be mushy.

"Taste is something that requires a bit of talent. It needs to be understood and experienced by a chef. In other words, he knows it naturally. If you ask him to talk about it, he will not be able to explain it.

"Find a top-notch chef. The dishes he cooks will definitely look better than yours, but that's the type of dish, the presentation, not the taste. The taste may not be better than yours. For example, if you ask me to make this large intestine Claypot, the food I made will definitely not be as delicious as yours.

"This is not modesty. Of course, it is a large intestine stew. If this is a beef brisket stew, I think about it. It will be more delicious than yours. This is another matter. You need to be experienced. For example, I know that making beef, Adding beer to stew is better than cooking wine, and adding shell beer is better than Tsingtao beer. This is knowledge and experience. If you have never done this before, you don’t know.

"But I told you, you know, if you make it tomorrow, it will definitely be different. The chef's talent is very important, and his knowledge and experience are also very important. I think Mr. Zhang sent you here because there is a very important person." The big idea is to increase your knowledge. Before your hotel opens, I estimate that Mr. Zhang will take you to eat in all the hotels in Hangzhou..."

"How do you know, Master, Mr. Zhang really said that?" Huijuan was surprised and interrupted Fatty Fu.

Fatty Fu smiled and said: "If he doesn't do this, he won't be a good boss or a successful boss. Successful bosses have paid tuition. He knows the importance of knowledge and experience. He has never experienced it. Yes, you can learn from others.”

Huijuan nodded and thought, this is probably what Brother Zhang said, that stones from other mountains can be used to grind jade. Huijuan said:

"That makes sense. I'm sorry, Master, I just interrupted you. Please continue."

Fatty Fu said: "The most important thing is that what I make will definitely look better than yours. This is what you have to learn. I told you before that taste is the soul of food. You already have the soul of food. Now What you need to learn is the surface, the display.

"Taste cannot be taught, so when we learn to be a chef, we all start with knife skills, starting from chopping radish and shredded fragrant shreds, because knife skills can be learned. If you give the stupidest person a period of time, let him learn it. His knife skills can be improved, and whether the knife skills are good or not will directly affect the type of dish. The quality of the dish is determined by the appearance of the dish.

"Before you taste a dish, it must first make people have an appetite and make it look delicious. If you don't have an appetite, you will be muttering in your heart. Even if you make it delicious, he will not think it is so delicious."

"I understand, Master, no wonder the dishes in big hotels always have radish flowers on the plate, just to look good." Huijuan said.

"That's the presentation. Presentation is also very important in a big hotel. Seven points of dishes, three points of presentation. These three points, not only the presentation, but also the choice of the utensils you use to serve the dishes are very important. Yes, of course, first of all, your dishes should be of good quality, well presented, and very eye-catching when you take them out, making them comfortable to look at.

"If the color of the dishes you bring out is ugly, and the ingredients are different in size and thickness, and you just put a circle of flowers on the side, it will definitely not work. And these can be learned. This is how to sell vegetables. Mutually.

"Among all the cuisines, Cantonese cuisine is the best in presentation. We have to admit that Chaozhou cuisine is more exquisite than Cantonese cuisine. Chaozhou cuisine was originally a branch of Cantonese cuisine. Now it has an independent meaning. Cantonese cuisine There are four branches, one is Cantonese cuisine, one is Chaozhou cuisine, one is Dongjiang cuisine, and the other is Hainanese cuisine.

"Now we talk about it separately. It seems that Cantonese food is Cantonese food, and Teochew food is Teochew food. Hotels that make Teochew food will never say that they make Cantonese food. They all use the name of Teochew food. Why? Teochew? The food is expensive and sophisticated. Now when looking at Dongjiang cuisine, Hainan cuisine, and even Cantonese cuisine, Chaozhou cuisine feels like city people look at country people.

"But is the Chaoshan area a countryside? Of course it is a countryside. It, Hainan, and Huizhou, which has Dongjiang cuisine, are both rural areas. Only Cantonese cuisine, that is, Guangzhou cuisine, can be regarded as urban cuisine. But in the past ten years, It's different now. When looking at other Chaozhou dishes, I think they are old Chinese dishes.

"Why? This trend comes from Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, there are many big bosses from Chaoshan. These bosses invite people to dinner. Others invite these bosses to dinner. They all like to eat Chaozhou cuisine. It is easy to do business with Chaozhou people in hotels. When Teochew people make money in business, everyone cooks Teochew cuisine.

"As for us Chinese, not to mention going to those fly restaurants, those who go to big hotels to treat guests to dinner, half of it is to eat, and the other half of it is to save face. Well, if you want to talk about face, then the owner of the hotel, as I said, In terms of the taste of the food, there is actually not much effort that can be put into it. It is all about the decoration, the tableware, and the presentation. These are just superficial things.

"Then add some stories. The bird's nest must say that it is a swiftlet's nest. The swiftlet's nest is on Dazhou Island in Hainan. There are dozens of swiftlets on the entire island. Only a few bird's nests can be found in a few years. , where did so many golden bird's nests come from? They are all fakes.

"Everyone compared the decorations and told stories. The tableware and porcelain are no longer silver. We need pure gold, and the chopsticks need ivory. In this way, the Teochew cuisine becomes more and more exquisite, and the presentation becomes better and better. , but there is no way, customers will do this. Didn't I say that when people come to eat, half of it is to eat and half of it is to save face.

"I'm telling you this not to ask you to learn this, but to tell you how important presentation is in the eyes of diners, especially when you make local dishes. How do the local dishes in big hotels compare with those in fly restaurants? The difference is that you can control the taste. All you need to do is these superficial things, but these superficial things are the reason why you are different from the fly house.

"For example, when it comes to the choice of tableware, you can either choose very exquisite tableware, which will make people feel that it is different when you first look at it. What you are eating is local food and what you see is the appearance of high-end food, or you can choose the most rustic. , so cheap that people can’t find it even if they look for it in the market now. The effect is the same. When people look at it, they find it curious and interesting, and your purpose has been achieved.

"The other thing is, in terms of dish type, how can you make your dishes not only delicious but also good-looking? You have to think more about this. Our Hunan cuisine is actually very rustic, but this 'Zu'an Hunan cuisine ', it's different, it makes Ya, there's no other way, Tan Yankai is a cultural man, he's an official, he has money, and all the dishes he creates are for this.

"Compared with other Hunan dishes, 'Zhu'an Hunan Cuisine' looks better. It was created by officials and wealthy people. It suits their own tastes. Officials and wealthy people will probably be the same in the future. As the main customer of your hotel, while you are here, it will be very enlightening for you to learn more about the difference between this 'Zu'an Hunan cuisine' and traditional Hunan cuisine."

"Excellent, Master, what you said is really inspiring to me. I will definitely work hard on my appearance in the future. Master, there is still half a glass of wine. Can you drink it now?" Hui Juan asked.

Fatty Fu said yes, let's drink half a glass of wine.

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