Source: Shantou Olive Terrace (Wentu/Shantou Rong Media Reporter Song Song)
Editor's note: The 4th Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area "Cantonese Cuisine Master" Skills Competition and Cantonese Cuisine Industry Cultural Exchange Activity will be held in Shantou in November. In 2018, Guangdong Province began to promote the "Cantonese Cuisine Master" project, while inheriting cantonese cuisine culture, promoting high-quality employment of urban and rural workers and helping to accurately alleviate poverty. In recent years, Shantou Has taken the promotion of the high-quality development of the "Cantonese Cuisine Master" project as an important starting point for the implementation of stable employment, rural revitalization and integrated development of cultural tourism, and a batch of Chaoshi cuisine cooking skills talents have been "freshly baked". In a series of exquisite chaoshi dishes, the taste is the food culture, the creation of labor service brands, the convergence of rural revitalization, out of a road that effectively promotes the employment and entrepreneurship of urban and rural workers, poverty alleviation and prosperity, full of color and flavor, to help Shantou accelerate the construction of a modern and dynamic special economic zone, to achieve new positioning and new goals and new tasks. From now on, Shantou Olive Terrace launched a series of reports on the "Entrepreneurial Stories of Cantonese Chefs ▪", let us "taste" Cantonese cuisine together and understand the entrepreneurial stories of Shantou Cantonese chefs.
Kway teow is both sacred and common in the Chaoshan region, whether it is worshipping ancestors, marriage and funeral, or "doing kway teem in the seasons, preventing seasonal diseases", the Table of the Chaoshan people is inseparable from the "Kway".
Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying, like the housewives of thousands of families in Chaoshan Province, can make kway teow, but what is different is that they have developed kway teow into their own business and joined the waimao dim sum shop brand restaurant with good craftsmanship. Now that two years have passed, the entrepreneurial road of these two "Chaoshan Ziniang" has gradually entered a better state, with a number of fixed old customers and continuous orders. From ordinary housewives to today's "craftsmen" who have successfully started a business with their skills, the lives of Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying have undergone earth-shaking changes, and all of this must start from a training. It was during that training that they met people who had changed their destiny.
A life-changing training
In May 2019, a short-term training session delivered by "Cantonese chefs" was held in Longhu Waisha, and Chen Xiuying, who was working in a textile factory at the time, learned the news from the local social security office and pulled her good sister Cai Shuying, who is also a textile factory employee, to participate in the training together.
"At that time, I was in the WeChat group of the Institute of Human Resources and Social Security, and I knew that there was a training of 'Cantonese chefs', and the training site was close to our home, so I pulled good sisters together." Chen Xiuying told reporters.
Cai Shuying said: "The training course is Chaoshan kun product production, I have been following my grandmother and mother to make kun since I was a child, I have a certain foundation for the production of kun, I am also very interested, I want to come to the training together, 'look'." ”
At that time, it was Xie Fubin, a special teacher of Chinese pastry at Shantou Technician College, who was the person who changed their fate in the mouths of Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying.
"Many of the people who came to the training were rural women, and in the training, I taught them the different operating procedures of each product, so that these short-term trainees could also master a skill as soon as possible." I also hope that in this way, the skill of making dishes with local characteristics will be spread more widely and go further. Xie Fubin said.
△ Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying participated in the "Cantonese Cuisine Master" training
As for his "proud disciple", Xie Fubin was even more praised: "Technology cannot be a little sloppy. Xiuying and Shuying both belong to the students who originally had the foundation of making kueh products, so they are easy to learn and make rapid progress. ”
Xie Fubin told reporters that learning Chaoshan kway teow is not the same as learning other skills. "Other industries may pay attention to innovation, but traditional kway teow production is more about 'old-fashioned' and produces 'the taste of childhood'." Under the teaching of Xie Fubin, Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying gradually found this taste.
"When I was a child, I watched my grandmother do it, and now I have a master to teach me, and I have a deeper understanding of the material collocation and production methods of the kway teow." After the master's guidance, the kway teow we made tasted better and looked more refined. Cai Shuying said.
"A small kun, there are also tricks to making. For example, rat koji, the skin can not be too thin, too thin will break, 'burst pulp'; can not be too thick, affecting the taste. For example, radish cake, the steaming time should be controlled well, so as not to sandwich the raw..." The kway teem making skills taught by the master, Chen Xiuying kept in mind.
After the training, Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying basically mastered the chaoshan kway teow making skills, but they still maintained contact with the master and often asked the master about making the kway teow. "The master was very patient with us, and when we asked him any questions, whether it was the recipe of the product or the combination of ingredients, he told us without reservation." Chen Xiuying said.
"Forty years old, dreams come true"
In the final exam of the training, the ginger potato shou peach made by Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying received unanimous praise and high scores of "graduation".
△ Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying participated in the "Cantonese Cuisine Master" training to make ginger potato shou peach
"Ginger potato shou peach is considered to be a relatively difficult to make in Chaoshan kun, according to the state of ginger potato to adjust the proportion of moisture in the formula, if the adjustment is not good, it is difficult to form." Fortunately, we all had success on that occasion. Chen Xiuying said. The success of the production of ginger potato shou peach brought great confidence to the two people, and the idea of "opening a Chaoshan snack bar" gradually sprouted. "We have made ginger potato peaches, red peaches, rat koji, sweet kun, pu zi kun, radish kun, rice dumplings... We will all do all of this! Why can't you open a store? ”
In this way, Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying, who are over forty years old, began to start a business together. At the beginning, in the circle of friends, when a cage of colorful and fragrant kueh products was "on the shelves" in the circle of friends, it was quickly "bought out" by relatives and friends.
"Everyone said that the kway teow we made was delicious and very supportive. During the festival, there are many orders, and sometimes we have to do three more in the middle of the night. Cai Shuying said.
When there was a stable source of customers, the sisters were not satisfied with "online" sales, and at the end of 2019 they set up a studio.
Chen Xiuying told reporters that the production of Chaoshan kunpin products has its own tricks, and after the studio is established, the two can concentrate more on making kuni products and studying techniques. "For example, to make rat koji, we have to go to the field to pick the rat koji grass, wash, dry, grind, so that it is original." Chen Xiuying said that every process of making Chaoshan kway teow must go through her own hands, and it is not a machine that can replace it.
Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying used their industrious hands to gradually push their careers onto the right track. In the middle of 2020, they joined the Waima Dim Sum Shop brand restaurant and delivered their own handmade products to more people's tables.
Looking back on their entrepreneurial path, Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying both said, "The person who wants to thank most is the master." "We are all forty years old, we can still start a business, we can realize our dream of opening a store, I didn't dare to think about it before!" Most of all, I would like to thank my master! If I hadn't gone to training and met a master, I would have worked as a female worker in a textile factory. Chen Xiuying said.
"I am also very grateful to my master for teaching me the craft, as long as I have a skill, I can gain a foothold in society!" Now life, I am satisfied. In the future, I will continue to do a good job of Kway Teow and bring food to more people. Cai Shuying said.
If you have a skill, you have a foothold
The entrepreneurial story of Chen Xiuying and Cai Shuying is only a microcosm of the high-quality development of the "Cantonese Cuisine Master" project.
In recent years, Shantou Has deeply implemented the "Cantonese Cuisine Master" project to promote rural revitalization and targeted poverty alleviation. Through the construction of a skills training platform, the city has successively built a Cantonese cuisine master (Chao Cai) rural training base in the city, set up a rural technician workstation to meet the local training needs of rural labor force and precision poverty alleviation targets, and adopt innovative training methods, introduce short-term special skills training programs, select a number of key colleges and universities in the catering industry, key institutions, and key enterprises, and carry out "Chao Cai master", "please come in" learning system training, "send to the door" short-term training.
"Through training, students who have mastered a skill can better seek employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, thereby changing the fate of a person or a family." Xie Fubin said. This year, he has continued to travel between school and the countryside, doing the same thing, "teaching the skills of koeh making to more people."