Student Chefs in Shanghai Trained on Quality, Versatility of U.S. Pork

Student chefs at the Shanghai Caoyang Vocational School watch a U.S. pork cooking demonstration as part of USMEF’s Tomorrow’s Chefs Program

To educate chefs-in-training about the quality and versatility of U.S. pork, USMEF organized a student chef cutting and cooking seminar at the Shanghai Caoyang Vocational School. The training was part of USMEF’s Tomorrow’s Chefs Program, which debuted earlier this year with a goal of increasing awareness of U.S. red meat in China’s culinary circles. Funding support was provided by the Pork Checkoff.

Shanghai Caoyang Vocational School, the only school of its kind in Shanghai’s Putuo District, offers both a Chinese cooking major and a Western cooking major. Its graduates typically go on to work in restaurants and hotels throughout Shanghai.

Similar to the inaugural Tomorrow’s Chefs seminar held in April, the recent event included an introduction to USMEF and an overview of the U.S. pork industry, complete with descriptions of U.S livestock production, hog inventories, genetics and feeding practices. The seminar also addressed each cut of U.S. pork while a cutting expert and a professional chef demonstrated their many uses.

An instructor at the chef training displays bacon and discusses the many options for U.S. pork on restaurant menus

“Our plan is to expand the awareness among young Chinese chefs by going to cooking colleges and schools with a program that displays the options and opportunities that come with U.S. pork,” said Vanessa Sun, USMEF marketing executive in Shanghai. “For example, in this seminar, we tried salt and pepper U.S. pork boneless sirloin, which is a typical Chinese dish and can be applied to Chinese restaurants. By utilizing U.S. pork in the seminar, we were able to demonstrate to the student chefs how U.S. pork adds flavor to the dish.”

The seminar also included a session that had students taste different cuts and report what they liked best – and why. To supplement the tasting, professional chef Charles Lai’s cooking demonstration helped students recognize that a single U.S. pork cut can be used in a variety of dishes.

Along with a certificate for completing the program, students were given Lai’s “Western Cuisine Teaching – Red Meat Volume,” a book he published to introduce U.S. red meat applications in Western cuisine.

“We want to expand the Tomorrow’s Chefs Program into more schools because educating new chefs will help promote U.S. red meat in the long run,” Sun said.

Student chefs study U.S. pork recipe cards and information sheets about the U.S. pork industry provided by USMEF