Lee Kum Kee, a Chinese sauce and condiment manufacturer, announced winners for the Lee Kum Kee International Young Chef Chinese Culinary Challenge 2016 last Thursday. Among them was Park Eun-young, a Chinese culinary chef at the Grand Ambassador Seoul. She won the “Best Presentation Award” as well as the Silver Award with her “Pork Mushrooms in Chili-bean Sauce.”
At the competition held in Hong Kong on Sept. 28 and 29, a total of 43 young and passionate chefs from Australia, Canada, China, France, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan and the United States, showed off their finest dishes they prepared within the 90 minute time limit, using Lee Kum Kee sauce. Established in 1888 by the founder Lee Kum Sheung, the company currently offers over 220 choices of sauces and condiments in over 100 countries and regions. It started holding the competition in 2014.
25-year-old Park has four years’ experience in Chinese cuisine though she is the youngest Korean to participate in the culinary competition this year. She is already known to many viewers through a culinary program on cable TV, appearing with her teacher. She was put in the spotlight for making a hand pulled noodle dish in 15 minutes.
Park, who majored in hotel cuisine at Hyejeon College, chose Chinese culinary cuisine as her specialty while most of the other women in her class opted for Korean cuisine or western cuisine. In a previous interview with local media, she said that she had chosen Chinese cuisine because she had heard it was closed to female chefs. The Chinese culinary scene has only a small number of female chefs, with physically demanding work and the male-dominant culture cited as reasons. She is currently working as a chef at Hong Bo Gak, the Chinese restaurant at the Grand Ambassador Seoul.
(Featured Image: Park Eun-young, a chef at Grand Ambassador Seoul, won a prize at an international culinary competition with her “Pork Mushrooms in Chili-bean Sauce.” / Courtesy of Lee Kum Kee)
