Beijing, November 5 news as the only son in the "four roots and one family" in the well-known kitchen industry in the old Suzhou City, the only son to inherit the father's business of the "second generation of the kitchen", Qu Guiming has a higher starting point than others, but also has unimaginable pressure on ordinary people. The dirty work in the store is tiring, he must run ahead of others, and everything must be better than others.
In the process of continuous improvement, Qu Guiming became the youngest chef in the past hundred years of Subang cuisine's long-established brand "Deyue Lou" at the age of 36, and led the team of deyue Lou's back kitchen to explore the integration of the old brand and the modern torrent.
Qu Guiming (Courtesy of Qu Guiming)
Having a chef father is an advantage and a huge pressure
"Four roots and one family" is the name given by catering peers to five super-first-class chefs in Suzhou's kitchen industry in the 1970s and 1980s, and Qu Qungen, the master of the white case, is one of the "roots". And he is also the father of Qu Guiming, the youngest chef in Suzhou's time-honored "Deyue Lou".
Since childhood, the back kitchen of Songhe Tower, another long-established company in Suzhou where his father worked, is like Qu Guiming's "toy library", and young chefs often make small gadgets of dough to tease him. His father was enthusiastic and good at meeting friends, and often had cooks come to the house to drink and chat, so the kitchen and kitchen things became a part of Qu Guiming's life, and he himself seemed to like things related to the kitchen. Therefore, after graduating from junior high school, Qu Guiming chose to become a chef.
Since childhood, Qu Guiming watched his father come out early and return late every day, and he was also accustomed to the harshness of the chefs, for the hard work of learning to cook, he had long been mentally prepared, and he also studied hard, but he did not expect that these "natural advantages" had become his own huge pressure. Especially after graduating and coming to work in DeyueLou, Qu Guiming truly felt this pressure.
"Just like the old saying that 'the dragon gives birth to the dragon and the phoenix, and the son of the mouse will punch holes', I should do well, and if I don't do well, I can't." Qu Guiming said that in the inertial thinking of Chinese society, as the son of a master chef, even if he does only a little deviation, he will be criticized for "you can't do it", or even "your father can't do it".
This is also one of the reasons why many descendants refuse to inherit their father's business, so only Qu Guiming chose to become the "second generation of cooks" in the "four roots and one family" in Suzhou City that year.
After cooking, for his own sake and for his father's reputation, Qu Guiming demanded himself with the highest standards in everything. At that time, the big stove was burning coal, pulling briquettes was the most basic daily work, Qu Guiming was always the first to appear, pulling the briquettes back to the kitchen, what needs the masters, Qu Guiming always appeared at the first time.
In order to improve his cooking skills, Qu Guiming often stayed in the back kitchen until four or five o'clock in the morning after work, just to observe the masters who were going to compete in the competition. How this dish was conceived, how each step was made, Qu Guiming wrote it all down in his small notebook, and then tried and practiced according to these techniques of the master during the day.
Squirrel mandarin fish is a very technically tested dish in Su bang cuisine, according to Qu Guiming, in the past, if there was no ten years of skill, the master would not let anyone touch any process of this dish.
Squirrel Mandarin Fish (Courtesy of Qu Guiming)
In order to practice this dish well, Qu Guiming spent 3 years practicing knife skills alone. Of course, not with mandarin fish, but with any fish species that you will come into contact with at work. For example, if he wants to use sea bass to make fish balls and fish puree, he will first use the whole fish to practice the knife method of squirrel mandarin fish, and then process it into fish balls.
With this effort, the high demands on himself and the knowledge of cooking skills accumulated from childhood, as well as the trend of the aging chef team getting younger and younger, Qu Guiming became the head chef of Deyue Lou at the age of 36, becoming the youngest chef in the past hundred years.
But this did not become a reason for Qu Guiming's stagnation.
In 2008, Qu Guiming, who had just been promoted to the head chef, led the team to participate in a CCTV basic skills competition, as a Su Bang cuisine chef who pays great attention to knife skills, Qu Guiming is determined to win the laurel, but in the competition, a Hunan master blindfolded and boneless technology, so that Qu Guiming could not help but be surprised, "A master who does Hunan cuisine can actually do such knife skills, on the contrary, Su Bang cuisine, who is known for his basic skills, has not yet done this." ”
"Are we a little too confident?" This incident made Qu Guiming deeply feel that "there are people outside the people, there are days outside the sky", even if he has some achievements, he cannot lie down on the merit book and sleep.
Therefore, as the head chef, Qu Guiming began to train his basic skills again, practicing blindfolding to make the whole chicken out of the bone, and after three months, Qu Guiming was able to completely remove all the bones of a chicken under the blindfold, and the bone did not have meat, the meat was not bone, and there was no breakage after filling with water.
In the eyes of many people, Qu Guiming at this time is no longer the little fart child who followed his father to the kitchen to play, but Qu Guiming himself knows that if he wants to completely take over his father's mantle and become an independent chef, there is still a lot to be done.
(Courtesy of Qu Guiming)
Innovation is harder than creation
At this stage, Qu Guiming began to consciously want to make dishes with his own style.
Once, Qu Guiming went abroad to participate in a cultural exchange activity, but when he arrived in the local area, he learned that because there were foreigners eating, all dishes had to be on the spot. The squirrel mandarin fish is a must-have dish, and because the mandarin fish is relatively large, it is impossible for everyone to go to a big fish. Therefore, Qu Guiming changed the prepared mandarin fish to a chrysanthemum knife on the spot and divided it into about 50g of each meal.
After this activity, Qu Guiming thought that changing Chinese food to a bit of food is not only in line with international customs, but also in line with modern food concepts, and tests his research and control of dishes.
Therefore, after returning to Suzhou, Qu Guiming went headlong into the study of changing squirrel mandarin fish to a meal.
Once, Qu Guiming saw the newly listed pond snakehead in the market, this fish is small, the meat is delicious, very suitable for making a meal, so he thought of making squirrel mandarin fish into squirrel pond mandarin fish.
However, the pond fish is only about half the length of the palm, and if you want to change the knife on the fish and fry it again, it is not something that can be done casually. After repeated attempts, Qu Guiming finally figured out how to make squirrel pond mandarin fish under the knife, and how the oil temperature and time of frying were different from squirrel mandarin fish.
Exquisite craftsmanship, coupled with the prestige of pond snakehead, makes this squirrel pond snakehead become the new "town shop" dish in Deyuelou.
After that, Qu Guiming tried many traditional famous dishes in Deyuelou one by one, and this series of innovations has also become a "major reform" in Deyuelou in the past hundred years, and in 2017, it realized all the dishes.
"It's harder to innovate than to create." Qu Guiming said, "Creation can be imaginative, what is done is new, it is all right, but the innovation of old things is in the prototype, any change must be reasonable, as long as there is a little difference from the diner's imagination, it will be magnified and said to be chaotic." ”
But as the inheritor of Su Bang cuisine, this is also what Qu Guiming must face.
After the successful reform of serving dishes in office, Qu Guiming innovated dishes such as Water Eight Immortals and Taihu Lake Sanbai, and actively explored ancient dishes, combined with the characteristics of Suzhou from time to time, and launched the "Four Seasons Banquet".
It seems that the four seasons banquet is not difficult, only one seat in 3 months, but it is difficult to make every table and dish of the four seasons banquet have characteristics, follow the characteristics of Suzhou, respect the seasons, and do not repeat.
Just like fish, if you make squirrel pond fish in the spring, the dish of squirrel fish cannot be reproduced in the four seasons feast. Combining the seasonal climate and ingredients, Qu Guiming introduced mille-feuille mandarin fish in the dry autumn, steamed with mandarin fish fillets with ham, shiitake mushrooms, etc.; in the colder winter, the hot braised fish was introduced.
Bad fragrant white orchid (courtesy of Qu Guiming)
Old-fashioned innovations take more time
As a long-established brand of Subang cuisine, in addition to dishes, DeyueLou also faces the majority of consumers.
In recent years, the trend of Chinese catering has changed suddenly, the "big catering" has taken a sharp turn, and various new restaurants have poured in, and many long-established brands have been overwhelmed. It's not that their dishes aren't tasty, but that now consumers' tastes have changed and demand more.
Qu Guiming, who bears the reputation of Deyuelou's dishes, also has his own entanglements, "It's not that we don't know to change, but an old brand can't change all at once, if that is the case, it is not an old brand." ”
The torrent of the times rolled in, and it was certainly not okay to be unchanged, but it suddenly became too big, what about those old diners? What about consumers who rush to this traditional taste?
Other Su restaurants can make diners say: Delicious, but not the taste I came to eat twenty years ago. But Deyue Lou can't, and Qu Guiming can't make people question the old-fashioned golden signboard of Deyue Lou.
"So we try to change little by little, just like now people don't like sweetness too high, if the previous sweetness was 10 points, we will slowly drop 9.8, 9.6, through a period of time, and finally reach the sweetness of 7 or 8 that everyone likes now." 」 Qu Guiming said that for long-established brands, it takes more time to innovate and keep up with the trend.
"People will compare, some people like old things, some people like new things, which requires us chefs to balance the contradictions and make the most average taste." 」 Like the sound of oil eel paste, Qu Guiming has already achieved oil reduction and oil reduction, which is deeply loved by new and old diners.
The above-mentioned Taihu Sanbai, Qu Guiming is also made into a spring roll form on the basis of the original dish; the eight immortals of water are also made into lotus pond stir-fry through at least 4 kinds of seasonal aquatic plants, which can be replaced by new ingredients according to the season to maintain the freshness of new and old diners, and at the same time give new vitality to old dishes through plating innovation.
The back kitchen of deyue building is also under the leadership of Qu Guiming, inheriting the glory of the old brand in its own way.
epilogue
In Qu Guiming's view, whether from his father's expectations or as a native of Suzhou and the subang cuisine, Subang cuisine must adhere to tradition and inherit the culture behind the dishes.
But this does not mean that the previous recipes are completely copied, and on the basis of familiarity with traditional practices, it is also possible to innovate dishes that meet the needs of modern markets.
Even the old brand cannot be left unchanged, but its change may take more time, which also tests the patience and determination of the chef.
Just as Qu Guiming has never jumped ship in thirty years, "It doesn't matter how far your eyes look, but if your feet are to stand firm and take root, just like when we cook, we must pay attention to having 'roots'." ”
This is also another kind of cultivation of Qu Guiming's own cooking skills.
(Author: Red Chef Chen Xi)
【Source: CCTV】
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