About 20 years ago, the Old Southern Culinary Institute had just been established, and it advertised in various Davids as if it didn't need money.

I don't know how many students from all over the world have been attracted to come to the old south to sign up for chefs.

Zhao Xi happened to be the first batch of students.

With dreams, with a desire for a better life, enter the old South.

It's just that he came from the Great Northern Wilderness, and he didn't think that the school he joined was still an empty space.

Or not exactly an empty space, after all, there is a simple iron fence around it, and there are container-converted dormitories and classrooms made of large tents, but there is nothing else.

As the first batch of trainees.

Zhao Xi was fortunate to participate in the construction of the old south, and every day during class, the frying spoon and the iron pot collided in the classroom, and the excavator and tower crane rotated outside the classroom.

The main teaching building currently in use in the old south began to be laid, built, capped, decorated and used under the witness of Zhao Xi and his group of students.

Zhao Xi still remembers the shock of their group of students when they first entered the main teaching building.

Custom-made cold storage, fruit and vegetable storage, a central kitchen with a full set of stainless steel kitchenware, blackboards, projectors, student practice desks, and a dedicated practice room.

It's simply a paradise for those of them who aspire to become chefs!

For the sake of word of mouth, the Old Southern School originally invited senior chefs from various cuisines to teach. Take both the capitation fee and the class fee. Students also receive additional incentives if they get a job.

Therefore, the teachers teach with special care, and they really take out the spirit of traditional chefs and treat the students as if they were their own children.

If you make a mistake, you will be scolded, and if you make a mistake, you will be punished.

Zhao Xi clearly remembered that a Sichuan student who lived with him was punished for washing the spatula used by the whole class for practicing because he put the vegetables first and then poured the oil.

There were more than 200 large iron pots, which were washed with dish soap, but because the water stains were not wiped dry, all of them rusted the next day.

The teacher was so angry that his nose almost crooked.

However, most of the students are very reliable, and at most they have the problem of accidentally cutting their fingers while practicing knife work.

Zhao Xi was also one of them.

At first, he practiced knife skills with turnips, but he couldn't cut them to the extent that the teacher required.

"You, as long as you can cut out such a radish slice, even if your knife skills are qualified!" As the teacher spoke, he held a slice of radish that was as thin and uniform as paper.

When it was passed to Zhao Xi, he didn't dare to exert himself, for fear of breaking the radish slices.

"How is it possible for a man to cut such a thin turnip?" was his only thought at the time.

"Fake, right?" Some classmates didn't believe it, and when they shook it hard, the whole radish slice was crumpled into a ball, and juice flowed out.

The onlookers were amazed.

The teacher was not angry, although it was the first time to take students on such a large scale, but the chefs who usually manage the kitchen already knew how to teach.

If you don't show your true skills first, it's impossible to control the field.

"If anyone else has any doubts, they can come and see for themselves how I cut it. ”

As soon as he finished speaking, the small podium was wrapped in water.

Zhao Xi remembered in the crowd, staring at the teacher's hand movements through the sews in the heads of four or five classmates.

In his left hand, he holds an ordinary white radish, and in his right hand, he holds a kitchen knife.

There are no superfluous movements.

Four fingers are clasped, and the right wrist shakes up and down.

The crowd was silent without a sound, save for fans whirring overhead.

The sound of the blade of "Dangdang" colliding with the chopping board was endless, spreading from the podium like a rising tide, rushing to all sides, wave after wave!

When the whole radish is cut, the teacher spreads it with his hand, and the pieces are as thin as shengxuan.

The waves also crashed down from the highest peak, shattering the last bit of doubt and doubt.

It was also from then that Zhao Xi's heart became firm.

He's going to learn how to cook!

He's going to eat with his craft!

......

In this way, Zhao Xi began to take root in the old south, seriously learned knife skills, fire, and seasoning, and moved towards the chef of his dreams.

When the school was first established, there was no restriction on the school system in the old south, and all students learned cooking in a unified manner, regardless of cuisine.

Anyway, Sichuan, Lu, Huai, Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hunan and Hui, the senior chefs of the eight major cuisines are all in class, and students will go to which cuisine they like.

The only requirement of the school is that every student must be admitted to the Intermediate Chef exam in order to graduate.

Most students are eager to learn all the dishes in a week, and then take advantage of the first exam to get an intermediate chef certificate and go home to earn money.

But Zhao Xi is different.

He looked at the senior chefs of the eight major cuisines of the old south, as if he had seen eight treasures.

Although the teachers in the old south only need to play demonstration videos in class, inspect and guide practice in class, and lack of comments after class to complete the teaching work, the standard and assembly line products are similar.

But after all, there is no teacher who hates motivated students.

Zhao Xi believes that as long as he is willing to work hard, he can always learn many things that others can't.

So, after each class, he would stop the teacher and ask some things that were not clearly explained in the video, and carefully record them back to practice.

If there is still something you don't understand after practice, continue to ask.

Until now, the old teachers in the old south will still remember Zhao Xi.

"You say the student who asks questions in every class? He's not stupid, he just wants to know all the details. ”

"I have taken apprentices (students) for so many years, and I have only met him alone, so I have to ask me what kind of cuisine is scrambled eggs with tomatoes? But he asked me what kind of cuisine home cooking was. Such a student, if he doesn't learn stupidly in the future, he will definitely be successful. ”

"He's, he's the hardest working student I've ever met, not one of them. ”

"I remember him, he was nice, really good!"

......

Zhao Xi relied on amazing perseverance and deliberately failed every chef level exam to successfully stay in the old south for five years.

No one knows how many catties of radishes he has cut in the past five years.

No one knows how many teaching videos he has watched in the past five years.

No one knows how many times he has turned over the pot and how many times he has practiced turning the spoon in the past five years.

In short, he left a legend in the Old South.

Legend has it that in order to exercise his knife skills and cooking skills, a student specially ordered a batch of iron rice grains, and silently went to the practice room every night to cut radishes and turn over the pot.

The iron rice grains are heavy, and every time the pot is turned over, the bottom of the pot will be thinner.

He broke five pots.

The blade is blunt, and each time the knife is sharpened, the blade becomes a little narrower.

He cut five knives flat.

And on the day he graduated, the principal of the old south personally sent his qualification certificate.

It was a chef's qualification certificate that he did not make a deliberate mistake before graduation, showing all he had learned in the old south.

Senior!

In the past five years, the old southern school has been the only senior chef certificate awarded by students.

He did it.

Just as he had hoped when he entered the school.