A chef competes in a Cantonese cuisine contest in Qingyuan, Guangdong province. [Photo by Qiu Quanlin/China Daily]
Cantonese chef Jiang Chenglin, from Qingyuan, Guangdong province, started his own business providing door-to-door dining services two years ago after receiving training in the cuisine.
"After participating in the training program, our dining services, usually with typical local chicken, goose and fresh river food, have gained more recognition for their quality," said Jiang, 54.
Over the past six years, more than 40,000 people in Qingyuan, a city in the mountains of northern Guangdong, have benefited from the province's Cantonese cuisine training program.
Since the program was launched in early 2018, more than 986,000 people trained across Guangdong have found jobs or opened their own businesses, according to local human resources authorities.
Citing the affordability of door-to-door dining — cooking on-site for customers — Jiang said his team has included over 80 chefs during peak times.
"Some of them are my apprentices, as we also train chefs as a way to help them find jobs," he said.
For hundreds of years, Cantonese cuisine, one of the four major Chinese cuisines, has been using a variety of seemingly simple methods to retain the natural flavors of ingredients, according to Ye Rongxin, a head chef working at a seafood restaurant in Qingyuan.
By teaching the preparation of Cantonese dishes, from the selection of raw materials, cutting techniques, seasoning and cooking to plate setting techniques, Ye has helped train more than 1,000 skilled Cantonese cuisine chefs over the years.
In addition to training in restaurants, the program has also been carried out in dozens of training bases and vocational schools across the province.
"I enjoy cooking and hope to learn more cooking skills," said Tong Zhujian, a student at Qingyuan Technician College, while practicing basic cutting skills on carrots.
To promote the program, 143 Cantonese chefs from the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area were invited to participate in a Cantonese cuisine contest in Qingyuan in late April.
"It is not only about a Cantonese cuisine contest — it also aims to build a new platform to serve rural revitalization by promoting the Cantonese cuisine training program," said Yang Hongshan, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security.
"The program has played a key role in fighting poverty across the province, helping to effectively promote skilled employment and entrepreneurship for urban and rural workers," Yang said.
