Schermenwald, Bern, Switzerland
My first drone video, shot with the DJI Spark.
Music:
Sunset by Kai Engel
From the Free Music Archive
Attribution License
Taiwanese chef rises to the top at Olympics of Bread-Making
This year in Paris, Taiwanese chef Wang Peng-chieh was crowned world champion in artistic bread-making, dazzling the judges with a statue of a Taiwanese religious icon made entirely of bread. But beyond winning global titles and baking unforgettable bread, Chef Wang and others like him hope to blaze a path for Taiwan in the distinctly European tradition of bread-making. Over the last few years, local bakers have been hard at work, trying to create bread that''s quintessentially Taiwanese. Tonight, we take a look in our Sunday special report. After a wait of 10 years, 31-year-old baker Wang Peng-chieh finally reached the pinnacle of his industry, besting the best bakers in the world at the Masters de la Boulangerie competition. Not long after winning the title of World Master Baker, Chef Wang is home again, instructing the chefs of his kitchen on the finer points of bread art. These chefs are preparing for the national qualifiers, their springboard to next year’s Masters. The theme of today’s challenge is Guanjiang Shou, a sort of underworld police in Taiwanese folk religion. It’s this theme that earned Chef Wang first place in the Artistic Bread-Making category at the 2018 Masters. Chef Wang’s award-winning creation was a Guanjiang Shou sculpture made out of bread. He said the inspiration came from the Eight General parades that he joined as a teenager. Wang Peng-chiehPastry chefI chose Guanjiang Shou because I was exposed to that from junior high to my junior year of high school. Actually for three to four years, I was involved in the temple parades myself, so I have a deep understanding of the Guanjiang Shou. I felt that it would be easy for me to capture its beauty. Chef Wang said that thinking back, it’s hard to believe that he was able to complete the sculpture in a mere eight hours. Wang Peng-chiehPastry chefI had never done it before within eight hours. It always took 20 hours or so. I’ll never forget the way I felt, because I was extremely tired. The fourth hour, the fifth hour – I just kept telling myself I had to complete the task. The most time-consuming step in the challenge was making the general’s armor. Every plate in the array was baked on the spot and painstakingly assembled, as the bread had to be baked repeatedly, and this took up precious time. Wang Peng-chiehPastry chefDoing it that way was the most dangerous option, given that there was only an eight- hour time limit. It meant that I needed to prepare everything before baking and assembling. In the past, contestants who used baking molds would rush the first six hours and be relatively relaxed toward the end as they assembled. Because I didn’t start baking until three hours in, there was a greater risk. Baked several times over, the dough is transformed by skillful hands into a thing of beauty, with delicate curves impossible to replicate with a baking mold. Chef Wang says that doing it this way gave heart and soul to the sculpture and was the key to winning the competition. The master baker’s success wasn’t a flash in the pan. Back in 2008, when acclaimed Taiwanese baker Wu Pao-chun was competing overseas, Chef Wang had served as an assistant on his team. Chef Wang said that the high bar set by his compatriot had a significant influence on him. Wang Peng-chiehPastry chefI pursued success relentlessly in every one of those competitions. I asked all the judges how they liked the pieces that were coming from Taiwan. My goal was to find out what each judge saw as the first-, second-, and third-place pieces. Once I knew, I reached out to those contestants. Not only Chef Wang but other Taiwanese bakers as well have proven exceptional at global competitions, producing European bread with Taiwanese traits and passing the baton of the championship title to one another. Wang Peng-chiehPastry chefWe’re always thinking about what bread represents Taiwan. Of course, bread emerged from the West, and it’s simply not a mealtime staple in Asia. So how should we go about making it Taiwanese-style, either in terms of the ingredients or techniques? Really, that’s a question that we’re still putting together and exploring. Today in this Taipei classroom, two luminaries of the bread-making world are demonstrating how to make a variety of European breads. Switzerland-based baker Francois Wolfisberg is a veteran judge for the Bakery World Cup, and Mario Fortin of Canada had served as jury chairman for the Masters. Chef Wang, who has competed in both competitions, helps out in the busy kitchen. Francois WolfisbergPastry chefIn Switzerland, we have a very long bread tradition, bread culture. We have lots of different influences in our country, which makes it very nice, very open. According to Chef Francois, Taiwan is very similar to Switzerland in that it has learned from the bread cultures of big countries and used them to develop unique breads of its own. He ...