Chef Hu Deok-juk / Captured from Netflix
Whereas there are lots of culinary greats rising from Netflix’s “Culinary Class Wars 2” Hu Deok-juk stands out not as a brand new star however slightly as a stalwart grasp of Korean Chinese language delicacies. Born in 1949, his culinary profession spans 57 years, together with a 42-year tenure at Palsun, the Chinese language restaurant within the Shilla Lodge. He stays an energetic chef, nonetheless working the wok himself. Simply two years after taking cost of Haobin on the Ambassador Seoul Pullman Lodge in 2021, he earned the restaurant a Michelin star. Even at the moment, he reportedly checks each dish rising from his kitchen to make sure it’s served on the excellent temperature.
Chef Hu started his profession in 1968 as a kitchen assistant in a resort restaurant, enticed by the promise that he “might eat loads of ham and sausage.” By way of grueling coaching that began with cleansing and laundry, and thru tenacious analysis into culinary secrets and techniques, he grew to become a grasp chef. He launched the Chinese language dish “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall,” a Fujianese shark fin soup, to Korea in 1987. He reworked the panorama of Chinese language delicacies right here, which had been dominated by spicy Sichuan and Beijing types, bringing in lighter, much less greasy Cantonese dishes. In 1994, he acquired reward from then-Chinese language President Jiang Zemin throughout his go to to Korea, who stated it tasted “higher than delicacies from the Chinese language mainland.”
Somebody of Chef Hu’s stature showing on a cooking selection present to compete with younger cooks was already a departure from the conventional hierarchy. The dignity and beauty he displayed throughout the competitors had been a good larger revelation. For cooks, knives are private and symbolic objects. When a fellow contestant abruptly grabbed Hu’s cleaver and banged it right down to crush garlic, he merely laughed it off, saying, “You employ the knife very effectively.” Over the course of the sequence, viewers have watched him yield the workforce chief function to a junior teammate and season meals together with his naked fingers just like the youngest novice. He inspired a former apprentice who hesitated whereas slicing mangoes, saying, “Do it like that, good! Good!” and greeted the judges first with a respectful “Thanks on your onerous work!” All through these shows of humility and camaraderie, the accolades poured in.
Cooks have typically been portrayed as individuals who simply fly right into a rage. Choi Hyun-wook (performed by Lee Solar-kyun) within the drama “Pasta” (2010) and Gordon Ramsay are archetypes of the ‘tyrant chef.’ Chef Hu demonstrated that kitchens can run easily with out anger and that ability doesn’t require conceitedness. Management based mostly on intimidation and humiliation is outdated. Everybody from class presidents to company workforce leaders and nationwide figures ought to mirror on this lesson.
This text from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Occasions, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Occasions.
