Delicate chrysanthemum tofu, hair-thin ramen, vivid "lion awakening", anime images and other shapes of dough sculpture...... In late spring, the reporter walked into the Lantian Chef School, and the stoves were "hot and hot", and the "unique skills" displayed by the students were even more amazing.
"Filling your stomach" used to be the simple motivation for Lantian children to go out to learn to cook. Nowadays, in the new era, the "spoon and spoon customers" of Lantian are "skillful", with dreams and hopes, and have set up a higher goal in life.
"One Skill Side"
Have self-confidence and dreams
Standing in front of the noodle case, Mao Xiangwen, who is 1.5 meters tall, holds the board with his left arm, holds a noodle knife in his right hand, and skillfully knives up and down, and the noodles slide down his fingertips...... The whole set of movements is like flowing water, and the small body seems to burst with great energy.
Students are practicing their cooking skills.
Who would have thought that two years ago, she was very confused because she failed the high school entrance examination. Under the persuasion of her parents, she came to Lantian Chef School a little reluctantly. Mao Xiangwen said that after entering the campus, she was attracted by the beauty and fashion here, and her prejudice against the industry has changed. Now, in the modern cooking teaching and training base, she has learned all kinds of pasta and bread making skills, has skills that will benefit her life, and has more smiles and confidence on her face, and wants to start her own business and open a cake shop in the future.
With a knife in hand, a beautiful chrysanthemum is slowly carved out on a piece of tofu. The "chrysanthemum tofu" made by Xiong Yancheng in Class 1 of 2022 is a must. "I used to be very unconfident, but after studying here, I have a skill, every time a leader comes to check, the school will let me show it, and everyone unanimously praises me, which makes me more confident. Xiong Yancheng told reporters that he would go to work in two months. His goal is to become the executive chef of a five-star hotel in the shortest possible time, and to polish the brand of "Lantian Chef" more brightly.
"Learning dough sculpture has made me appreciate the charm of excellent traditional Chinese culture. Zhao Jiaqi, a student of the class of 2023, picked up a vivid "lion dancing" dough sculpture and said proudly: "This is what I made after studying for two months. Last year, Zhao Jiaqi, who lives in Baqiao District, was deeply attracted after seeing the dough sculpture works released by the school through the short video platform, and made a special trip here to study. Here he not only learned his skills, but also found his direction in life. "In the future, my dream is to let more people understand and fall in love with intangible cultural heritage while learning their own skills. ”
Turn a major into a school. In 2021, Lantian County established Lantian Chef School, which is the only public cooking school in Xi'an. As one of the three campuses of Lantian County Vocational Education Center, all rural students are free of tuition in accordance with the national funding policy, and those with financial difficulties can also enjoy grants.
"While learning technology is important, cultural knowledge is also essential. Only when children have cultural heritage can they have a more long-term development. Dai Baiquan, executive principal of Lantian Chef School, said that the school not only offers professional skills courses such as Chinese cooking, Western cooking, and Chinese and Western pastry, but also public basic courses such as language and mathematics, and professional theory courses such as cooking and nutrition.
Give up high salaries to devote yourself to vocational education
Industry leaders teach skills "hand-in-hand".
......In front of the outdoor wok-based training table, Mr. Han Chao gave an order, and the pot rose and fell, pushed forward and backward, and the future "spoon and spoon customers" danced freely with the spatula in their hands.
Wonderful work from the students.
Han Chao is a native of Lantian and has worked in well-known hotels in other places for more than 10 years and has accumulated rich practical experience. "When I learned that this chef school had opened in my hometown of Lantian , I resolutely gave up the high salary and chose to come back to teach. In the interview, Han Chao said that vocational education now is very different from the past.
"In the past, we just wanted to have something to eat, but now students can learn a lot of skills at the same time through professional learning, and they are all called chefs and are very respected. I chose to come back to teach because I hope to help these children who have lost their confidence to continue to transform from cooking, to cooking, to cooking, to cooking, and to realize the value of their lives through professional learning. Han Chao said.
Han Chao is not alone, in Lantian Chef School, there are a group of integrated engineering teachers and cooking masters, who teach skills to children hand in hand. According to reports, the school has 4 culinary masters, 4 double-teacher teachers, 10 senior professional titles and municipal and county-level teaching experts and backbone teachers, and often invites provincial, municipal and even national celebrity chefs to come to the school for culinary exchanges and culinary inheritance.
"The biggest feature of vocational education is that it focuses on practical operation and practical application, and cultivates innovative talents with professional skills, so that students here have no worries about their future path. Ren Hongtao, principal of Lantian County Vocational Education Center, said that after three years of study, students can continue their studies in higher vocational colleges, and they can also choose employment and entrepreneurship. Many of the graduates have gone to five-star hotels across the country. The students graduating this year have already been "snatched up" by star-rated hotels in big cities, and the next class has also been "booked" early.
A school for chefs
Contribute to rural revitalization
In this school, there is also a "Lantian Chef Museum", in which a group of large-scale landscape platters made by teachers and students are quite attractive, which can be described as "there are mountains and rivers on the dishes, and poetry is overflowing on the plates". The museum also exhibits the moving stories of a number of Shaanxi cuisine masters and inheritors of Shaanxi cuisine, such as Cao Bingjun and Zhai Yaomin after the founding of New China, from the Lantian "Xing Kitchen" and "Monk Kitchen" in the Tang and Song dynasties, to the "Imperial Kitchen" in Lantian in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and then to Cao Bingjun and Zhai Yaomin after the founding of New China.
"By creating a chef museum, the school hopes to increase students' professional confidence and make them understand that being a chef can also make a difference. "Among the 650,000 people in Lantian County, more than 60,000 people are engaged in the chef profession, and they have traveled to more than 30 countries around the world by relying on 'a stir-fry spoon to go around the world', and have achieved extraordinary lives." ”
How to better cultivate professional talents, inherit the culture of the kitchen township, and help rural revitalization is a problem that all walks of life in Lantian actively think about and strive to solve. The establishment of this Lantian Chef School is a new measure and breakthrough in Lantian County's talent policy.
Run a school well, polish a brand, drive an industry, and enrich the people.
"From the very beginning of its birth, this school has engraved a distinct mark of the inheritance of master and apprentice, the continuation of skills and the promotion of spirit. Ren Hongtao said, "The students trained by the school must not only have excellent skills, but also have a very high comprehensive quality, not only to make a living through skills, but also to go to a bigger stage, obtain a high-quality life, and polish the golden sign of 'Lantian Chef'." ”
At the same time of full-time teaching, Lantian Chef School also carries out short-term cooking skills training for the society, further improves the skill level of the public, enhances their employment and entrepreneurship ability, and helps the county's economic development and rural revitalization, with a total of more than 4,000 trainees so far.
At the same time, the school continues to optimize the professional setting, in addition to the Lantian Chef School, the Lantian County Vocational Education Center also established the Lantian Home Economics School with high standards last year, and is accelerating the construction of the automobile maintenance training base of the Vocational Education Center. "At present, we are focusing on building characteristic vocational education brands such as 'Lantian Spoon Spoon Stirring World, Lantian Housekeeping Warm Ten Thousand Homes, Lantian Carving Crafts Carving the World's Beautiful Jade, and Lantian Automobile Repair Worry-free' to further help the county's economic development. Ren Hongtao said.
Text/Picture Xi'an newspaper all-media reporter Niu Ling
[Principal Says]
Let the "Lantian Spoon" stir the world
We are committed to cultivating modern, high-quality and professional compound chef talents, through running a school, polishing a brand, driving an industry, enriching the people, helping rural revitalization, and contributing to the practice of Chinese-style modernization in Xi'an. The school hopes that every student can practice "unique skills", use Lantian spoons to "stir up" their wonderful life, and at the same time stir the world.
——Dai Baiquan, Executive Principal of Lantian Chef School
[Reporter's Notes]
Exporting talents for rural revitalization
As soon as we walked into the school gate, Chen Zhongzhong's words were particularly eye-catching, allowing us to see the school's lofty goals.
What is the most important thing in rural revitalization? One of them is to build a lasting talent export mechanism according to local conditions. Two years ago, Lantian County took advantage of the unique advantages of local chef practitioners to build this chef school, and now it has become a special project for the cultivation of local rural talents.
Walking through this campus, the fashionable and modern school building, the first-class training room with complete facilities, the professional and responsible teachers, and the students with unique skills have refreshed the reporter's cognition of vocational education, and let the reporter see the charm of vocational education in the new era. The school not only teaches skills, but also cultivates professional and high-quality talents in the new era in an all-round way, helping students not only find a decent job and go to the world with their skills, but also become promoters of rural revitalization.
Nowadays, the students here are using kitchen utensils as pens and ingredients as test papers to "answer" for their lives, they have unique skills, more ideals and responsibilities, we have reason to believe that the choice of vocational education can also achieve a wonderful life, and every "spoon and spoon" with a dream has the opportunity to rely on a spoon to "stir up" the prosperous days.