Chinese national team highlights oriental features, sustainability in Culinary Olympics

STUTTGART, Germany - Highlighting oriental features and sustainability, China's national culinary team won a gold medal in "Live Carving" at the 25th IKA/Culinary Olympics, the world's top culinary competition which closed here on Wednesday.

Besides, the Chinese team won a silver medal in "Restaurant of Nations", a 3-course dinner match, and a bronze medal in "Chef's Table", a 7-course dinner match.

Inspired by the iconic figure of the flying Apsara found on the murals of the Mogao Grottoes -- an over 1,600-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site in Dunhuang, northwest China's Gansu province, Chinese gold medalist Han Xiaohui has used pumpkin, green and white radish, as well as carrots in his carving works to visualize a beautiful oriental lady.

The Chinese national team has fulfilled the concept of environmental protection and sustainable development in the competition, covering the selection of raw ingredients and the entire cooking process, said Li Tong, head coach of China's national culinary team and chief executive chef of Unilever Food Solutions.

Through Chinese-style cooking, the same ingredients and parts could be processed differently, and the waste rate of ingredients was managed to be below 5 percent in the competition, he added.

Li said that "making the best use of ingredients reflects the respect of Chinese chefs for food, and shows the unique charm of the Chinese cuisine."

Selected by the China Cuisine Association and Unilever Food Solutions, 22 chefs joined China's national culinary team last year, trying to combine the essence of traditional Chinese cuisine with international advanced cooking techniques, management and presentation, and showing Chinese cooking's advantage of diversification.

The IKA/Culinary Olympics, which began in 1900 and was held every four years since 1956 in Germany, is one of the most famous and influential international culinary arts competitions in the world. Around 2,000 chefs from nearly 100 teams worldwide came to compete in the six-day event this year.