The story of a cook

Chapter 528 Forget I'm a Cook
Love has no borders, but two people who love each other have nationalities.

Science has no borders, but scientists have motherlands.

Food knows no borders, but chefs do.

If it was the period of the Anti-Japanese War, if I was asked to cook for the invaders of China, I would definitely not be able to do it, even if I lost my head. It’s not that people are not afraid of death. It’s just that it’s better to die happily than to live humiliated Sometimes, I would rather choose to die as happily as a person.

You may not feel national integrity at ordinary times, but when your own nation is oppressed by outsiders, the national blood hidden deep in your bones will automatically boil and burn, making yourself full of blood.

Binhai is an open city. Although it is not as open and developed as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, it is still at the forefront of opening up in the three northeastern provinces.Due to its openness, there is also a grand beer festival every year, which naturally attracts many foreign tourists.

A foreign couple came to the old restaurant to eat, stood in the order area to look at the dishes, and fell in love with a dish. They communicated with Niu Xiuli, who is fluent in Chinese, in fluent English. As a result, both parties were very tired, and no one understood who was talking. .

I happened to come to the front desk, Niu Xiuli saw me and immediately said: "Chef, come here quickly, I don't understand these two foreigners eating for a long time, you can tell them."

I said, "I don't know a foreign language, and I don't understand it at all."

Saying so, but still walked over, knowing that I still understand a little bit, and I am also a high school student.

The foreign couple saw me coming and saw that I was wearing a chef's overalls, and thought that I could understand what they were saying, so they pointed to the "flavored veal" in the vegetable stall and spoke in English. Although they didn't understand them very well, they still understood them I was going to order this dish, but I thought it was a big dish, so I wanted half of it.

I said half OK to them in simple English, and said something always in English, wishing our friendship will last forever.The couple was very happy to hear that, and gave me a thumbs up.

Then I asked if they can speak Chinese?They can speak a little bit, but they can't speak well. I said that it would be embarrassing not to speak Chinese in the future, because China is powerful.

The foreign couple gave me another thumbs up.

At that moment, I felt very proud to be a Chinese.

Why not be proud?The Olympic Games have been held in BJ, China, and the occasion is unprecedented. As a Chinese, we have the capital to be proud of.

Through this incident, I feel that as a chef, I should also learn some English. At least I can know how to say the dishes I cook in English. It may not be necessary, but it is better than not at all.

Communicating with foreigners is a trivial matter, but it was publicized by Niu Xiuli as news, and it spread for a few days.In those few days, many people looked at me like that, thinking that I was very good - a cook who can speak foreign languages.

In fact, they don't know, I can only say a few words, and I can only speak based on the general understanding of foreigners' gestures, otherwise it won't work.

At the regular meeting, Li Haicai asked me to teach everyone how to speak English. I said, "Tell everyone that I can't teach you, so I can only speak a few words. Everyone mentioned English today, so let's speak English."

"I learned English when I first entered junior high school. I feel that learning English is much more difficult than learning Chinese, and even more difficult than classical Chinese. At that time, I didn't want to learn, and I couldn't do it if I didn't. I still had to learn for the exam. I had to wait until the second year of junior high school. I started to learn phonetic symbols when I was young, and only then did I feel that English is similar to our Chinese. Our Chinese has pinyin letters, and English just replaces pinyin with phonetic symbols. As long as you learn the phonetic symbols well, you will be able to read words.”

"I remember the first English lesson in high school was how to learn English. The text talked about how Marx learned a foreign language. Marx said that if a person wants to learn a foreign language well, he must first forget his mother tongue while learning. I speak my mother tongue, everyone. I understand everything, it’s our own national language, common people speak Chinese, and Chinese is our mother tongue. At that time, I didn’t quite understand it. I remember that my classmates couldn’t read words, so they used Chinese to mark the bottom. Can’t pronounce it? Tired tongue , isn’t it easy to pronounce in Chinese?”

"I clearly remember that the English teacher said that the first lesson must be memorized. At that time, English was the last thing to memorize. It took a lot of effort, and I memorized it later. Now I have forgotten everything else, just remember what Marx said, when learning a foreign language, first forget your mother tongue."

"This sentence is quite right. Tell everyone, especially the masters, why the dishes we cook are not as delicious as the dishes made by our mother at home? When I was young, I loved to eat the dishes made by my mother. What was there at that time? Nothing Every family has salt and soy sauce. If the family is good, you can buy a bag of MSG. I remember that my family has no MSG. Sometimes I can’t even afford soy sauce. I just add some salt when cooking. But I love it My mother’s cooking is still my favorite when I go home, and it’s better than mine. My mother is 75, can she cook better than me? How can I say that I’m still a chef, but she’s not.”

"Later, after I became a chef, I had been frying dishes for several years. Once, I suddenly thought of the English class I learned when I was studying. Marx said that if you want to learn a foreign language well, you must first forget your mother tongue. This sentence reminded me, and my head suddenly turned. Turning the corner, isn’t it the same when cooking as a chef, if you want to cook well, you must first forget that you are a chef.”

"Our mother cooks for us, everyone may wish to think about it, what do we have at home? Do we have any of our seasonings? What kind of oil, chicken essence, fresh dew, seafood soy sauce, Wanzi soy sauce, various sauces from Lee Kum Kee, sand tea ingredients , this oil and that oil, I guess our family doesn’t have these things, there are a few basic ones, salt, sugar, soy sauce, monosodium glutamate, chicken essence, some people have oil consumption, some people don’t have it, and the rest The only ones are onion, ginger, garlic, and pepper. It’s just this stuff, but the dishes made by our mother are delicious. You can eat the vegetables, and the meat can taste the meat. They are all authentic, and the more The more you eat, the more you like to eat, and you will still want to eat if you can’t eat.”

"Our mother is not a cook, but the dishes are delicious; we are cooks, and the dishes we cook are not as delicious as our mother's. Why? It is that when we cook, we feel that we are a chef. The first thing we think of is what to use Seasoning, if you put too little seasoning, you will not be able to cook. Put this and that, and put it back and forth. Taste, not to mention chicken, beef, and mutton, are all good seasonings, if the taste is not good, just add a spoonful of chicken essence, and you will have all the flavors. So our dishes have no special features and no technical content."

"Tell everyone that if you want to make your own dishes, which are delicious and well received by customers, then when cooking, first forget that you are a chef, and you don't have those seasonings, and make it authentic. Back to basics. Beef tastes like beef, mutton tastes like mutton, green vegetables taste like green vegetables, seafood taste like seafood, and this is called dish, which is what people like to eat.”

"Why is home-cooked food popular now? People are tired of eating big fish and meat, and the taste of seasoning is also disgusting. They just want to eat home-made dishes. There is no seasoning, the original flavor, and it is comfortable to eat. So let's not put ourselves As a chef, just follow the recipe at home, we cook whatever our mother cooks, and the dishes can feed people."

"We don't have any additives in the kitchen now. The seasonings are removed from hot dishes, and some seasonings that grab the flavor will be used less in the future. When cooking, less salt and sugar, less oil and thinner sauce, if you can't get it together, don't mix it up, use fire Hou Heziwei, don’t be fancy. Customers like this kind of dishes, and it’s also a development trend. To put it bluntly, it takes skill, and if the skills are in place, the dishes will be in place.”

Share your cooking experience with everyone, and at the same time put forward requirements for future dish production.

Now the home-cooked dishes of the old shop are very good. Many customers have become accustomed to eating the dishes of the old shop, and it is not easy to eat other people's dishes.The main reason is that the kitchen canceled the use of monosodium glutamate, and the dishes immediately tasted different from before.When the MSG was first removed, chefs were not used to cooking, and some even knew how to cook without MSG, but gradually got used to it.In the first week after the cancellation of MSG, customers were not used to it. People who are used to eating MSG always feel that there is something missing. The waiter explained that there is no MSG in the dishes, and the guests were also skeptical. After a long time, eat The taste came out, and I felt that there was no MSG, so I agreed, and said that this dish has a taste only after eating.

It can be said that the old restaurant is the first restaurant in Binhai to cancel the MSG stir-fried dishes, which has locked in many customers.After Master Du came to Coarse Grain, he also stipulated that chefs do not need to use monosodium glutamate in cooking, but he never followed through, and finally turned a blind eye to it.I once told him that if the dishes are to be delicious, we should cancel the monosodium glutamate and cook the old soup. As the saying goes, "the chef's soup with an opera accent" is rare. The chef should be less dependent on the seasoning and seasoning. Kung fu is used in basic skills and in heat, so as to improve the cooking level of the masters, and then improve the quality of dishes.

"Chef, try it. This is small tofu made with dried cabbage." Wang Tie brought the finished small tofu to me.

I tasted it with chopsticks, and the taste was dry and fragrant, with a slight taste of dried cabbage, followed by a strong tofu flavor, which was very refreshing.There is not much water in the food, it is fragrant but not greasy, and there is a desire to eat the second after the first bite.

"Okay! This method is good. Dried cabbage is indeed better than second cabbage. I will use dried cabbage in the future." I said.

"That's what I did," he said.

"Just do this and meet this standard." I said happily: "From now on, Xiao Tofu, you will be the first person in charge, and Zhang Zhicheng will be the second person in charge. Let him also meet your standard, and he will do it after you rest."

"Okay, don't worry about the chef, there's nothing wrong with it." He readily agreed.

Xiaodoufu has been promoted, and he is in a good mood.Now every dish that has been fixed has been approved by the guests, and it is very difficult to improve the taste, as if it has reached a bottleneck.It's hard to improve a dish, which can be described as overjoyed.

Due to the good sales of Northeast dishes, the seafood side began to decline in other dishes except stewed fish. This decline has lasted for two months. I want to remove a seafood chef and add a Northeast dish.

I talked to Zhao Xiaojun to see which master he wanted to remove.

"Boss, I won't withdraw here. Master Fu has been with me for a long time. He told me the last two days that he wants to learn Northeast cuisine. Let me tell you whether you accept apprentices or not. I want to worship you as a teacher." He continued: "This is my plan. We will switch places. He cooks next to Master Wang. If there are Northeast dishes, he can cook them. If there are too many seafood dishes on my side, he can also cook them. What do you think?" "

The suggestion he made was very good, but I was stunned all of a sudden, and I wanted to remove a seafood master to serve Northeast dishes, and I could completely turn a seafood master over to solve everything.

"Okay, I'll do as you say." I said.

"What about his apprenticeship?" Zhao Xiaojun asked.

"I don't accept apprentices, you tell him."

He looked at me and smiled, persuading me: "Boss, you are now qualified to accept apprentices. You dare not say anything else in Binhai. You are the boss of Northeast cuisine."

"Brother, there is no end to crafting. If you work until you are old enough to learn, there are some people who are beyond others. We know what we know. According to other masters, we are just elementary school students, so we can get started. The boss of Northeast cuisine can talk about it in his own home. Don't say it when you go out, it's embarrassing." Said to him very seriously.

He looks at me, then nods.

When people have to be self-aware, they admit that they know a lot about Northeast cuisine, and they cook it very well, but in a city as big as Binhai, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, no one dares to say that they are the boss, if they want to say that they are good in a certain field It's okay to be top-notch, but to say that you are the boss of the entire Northeast cuisine is pure bragging.

In the second half of September, the business started to decline. It was not as busy as in August, but it still remained at 4 yuan per day.Selling [-] in the past felt very busy, but now selling [-] is already a normal business, and everyone doesn't feel busy anymore.

After eight o'clock, I checked with Manager Chen about the dishes of the day. There were no customer complaints throughout the day, and there was no problem with the dumplings.I wanted to go upstairs to the pastry room and have a look at the cold dishes. Before I could move, Wang Yaxin came to me and told me that he was going to transfer his wife back to the old shop.

"Why do you work hard there and get transferred back?" I asked, not planning to transfer his wife back, and finally got transferred.

"I got involved with Zhang Chunmei there," he said.

"It's useless to talk about it. It's all about family."

"My family has a bit of a bad mouth. I just want to say whatever I don't like. Isn't Zhang Chunmei the supervisor? I feel that I'm digging her face. Old ladies, they are all narrow-minded, and they will make a lot of noise when they talk too quickly."

I said, "No offense."

"That's not wrong, call me after the noise, and say you want to transfer back, let me tell you." He looked at me after speaking.

"Old Wang, this restaurant is not owned by our own family. What I say doesn't count, and what you say doesn't count. No matter how powerful Lao Tan is, he doesn't dare to transfer people casually. The old man has to nod."

This is a troublesome matter, and I have to push it on the old man.

He's having a bit of trouble.

I said: "Besides, my sister-in-law and Zhang Chunmei are noisy, it's not a big deal, how did the head chef deal with it? It's okay to say that my sister-in-law is not needed, and we can't transfer people without permission if they don't say so."

"The head chef turned to Zhang Chunmei. Zhang Chunmei was often busy, and the head chef coaxed her around. The two of them almost didn't sleep together." He said.

"Old Wang, you can control your mouth. Don't say you didn't watch it, even if you did, don't say it. We are gentlemen. Talking about this is just pulling my wife's tongue. It's not a crime. Let's talk about things if we have something to say. Inside and outside." I said.

Seeing me talking about him, he felt a little embarrassed, and said in a low voice, "I'll just tell you, not others."

"We are all at this age, because gossip is not worth it." I went on to say, "My sister-in-law's matter is like this. Let's see how the head chef handles it first. You can listen to other people's work. If the head chef stays My sister-in-law is there, so let's do it first, to save face for others, and not to cause trouble for the old man. If the head chef says that I don't need my sister-in-law, then we will come back, why do we still have a mother's family. "

"Okay, I'll make a call and talk."

(End of this chapter)