As of last night, another year of intense competition among the world’s best Chinese chefs concluded—its winners crowned. The gold, silver, and bronze winners together planned, cooked, and presented to a guest list of connoisseurs the 10-course Chinese dinner of their lives.
fter the feasting ends and the digesting begins, great stories must be shared. Let’s travel back to last year’s award ceremony—one that will remain in culinary history.
This is the story of Chen Yongming, who won gold in the Shandong cuisine category in last year’s International Chinese Culinary Competition. At this annual competition, each contestant is entered into only one of the five regional cuisines of China: Sichuan, Cantonese, Shandong, Dongbei (Northeastern), and Huaiyang.
Competition lasts two to three days, in which contestants produce multiple dishes for judges and audiences to sample. Time is tight and so is the cooking space where Chen shared workspace with up to five other contestants.
“Other than the two dishes that he was going to cook, he forgot about everything,” said Xi Lei, producer of the competition. “One required dish last year was a fish fillet. When he practiced at home, he used pre-cut fish fillets. Onsite, he was surprised that we gave him a whole fish, because you have to cut the fish. So he was very focused.”
Despite his best effort, Chen did not think he was going to win. When his name was announced for the gold award, Chen wasn’t even present.
Xi wasn’t surprised why Chen didn’t turn up. “Because number one, in China, a lot of competitions are filled with corruption and basically whoever gives a lot of money wins. So he was used to that,” said Xi. “Also his food is very traditional. It’s not modern or popular and fancy … So he didn’t think that it would gain the judges’ favor just because it’s an old style.”
Yet he was the only gold prizewinner in any division. The gold prize awards for the other four types of Chinese cuisine remained vacant.
“So when they announced ‘Chen Yongming,’ we were all wondering ‘Where is he?’ We called him on the phone, saying, ‘You are the only winner, you gotta come.’” At the moment he was cooking for an important guest. When he got the call, he dropped everything and rushed to the awards ceremony.
“He accepted the award and gave a good speech. It was good, because it was very spontaneous. He said that the mixed feelings of life all came up,” Xi recalled. Later, Chen shared that while cooking at this competition, he felt for the first time a sense of meditative calm—it was as if he was being carried through the experience; there was nothing but himself and the food.
Xi said Chen had something that other competitors didn’t—a genuine pursuit of traditional and authentic Chinese food. “He really studied our mission,” said Xi. This year, Chen was invited back to the competition—but as a judge, not a contestant.
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