Bridging China and France with food: Meet #BridgeBuilders Corentin Delcroix （主厨广坦）
‘My biggest personal goal is clear: when I have mastered Chinese food, I will share Chinese food-making to Westerners from their point of view.’
‘My biggest personal goal is clear: when I have mastered Chinese food, I will share Chinese food-making to Westerners from their point of view.’
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Food is a great way to create bridges,
00:05 because when people are interested in the other
00:10 country's food, then they slowly, step by step,
00:13 through food, they're going to learn more about the geography,
00:16 about the people there, about the culture,
00:18 about the language.
00:21 [SPEAKING CHINESE]
00:25 My name is Corentin Del Croix.
00:27 My Chinese name is Guangtan.
00:29 I'm a French chef, been living in China for 17 years now.
00:33 And I'm doing mainly two things.
00:35 One is doing food R&D, so creating new products
00:38 for different brands.
00:39 And the other one is sharing some content
00:42 on Chinese social media.
00:44 I was born in the north of France, a family of six
00:48 overall.
00:49 So when I first came to China was in 2002,
00:52 and was to study business.
00:54 So I did a university in France, a business school,
00:57 which is like two years in France and three years abroad.
01:00 I chose to go to China.
01:02 Since I didn't know much about China,
01:04 food was also a good way to understand a bit more
01:06 about the different regions, different styles of cuisine
01:10 in China.
01:11 So I loved Chinese food at that time.
01:14 And then I started to study a bit Chinese food,
01:18 to learn a bit of Chinese cooking.
01:20 With the lady that was doing the cleaning in the dormitory,
01:23 I asked her if she could teach me a few dishes.
01:26 So we went to the market together,
01:28 bought some ingredients, went back,
01:30 and started with some very, very basic Chinese dishes.
01:34 She taught me how to cook them, and that's
01:36 kind of what started my passion for food.
01:39 And so I chose to change path, and then to go back to France
01:43 to properly study cooking in a cooking school back in France.
01:47 And then in 2010, there was the Shanghai Expo.
01:55 So I left France, left the work I had in France,
01:59 and went to work in the restaurant in 2010
02:03 during the Shanghai Expo.
02:04 After that, I opened a consulting company.
02:07 So now we are doing product development.
02:12 So the online, we started a bit more than three years ago.
02:15 Because working in consulting, as I said,
02:19 we get the consumer brief, our client's brief.
02:22 And maybe we're going to come up with 50 different ideas.
02:26 But in the end, the product that are going to be launched,
02:29 maybe there's just one, two.
02:31 Our thought was, OK, it's too bad
02:33 to waste those 48 ideas that we thought were some good ideas.
02:37 So why not start to share those ideas on social media?
02:41 When I started to share some Chinese, like me,
02:48 Chinese cooking Chinese, I was a bit afraid
02:51 that everybody was, OK, that's not authentic.
02:54 Foreigner, they can't cook Chinese.
02:57 I was a bit afraid there would be that kind of feedback.
03:00 But in the end, it's quite the opposite.
03:02 Everybody's very encouraging.
03:05 The comments are very positive.
03:07 So when I do something they think is well done,
03:12 then it's a lot of encouragement.
03:13 OK, you're doing great.
03:15 When I do something maybe wrong in the recipe,
03:18 a lot of people are going to give me some advice,
03:20 saying, OK, you should have done like that.
03:22 It's better to use that product instead of that one.
03:25 And so I learn a lot from the comments also.
03:28 For a lot of French people, when you
03:34 cook some authentic Chinese food,
03:36 it's kind of a discovery for them.
03:38 And I think a lot of them, at least in my family
03:41 and in my friends, a lot of them are very eager to learn
03:47 some Chinese, whether it is making dumplings
03:49 or doing some chow tu dou si, shredded potato, or anything.
03:55 They are very eager to learn more about those dishes.
03:59 Chinese food has huge potential in going global,
04:04 and especially ingredient-wise, ingredients and some techniques,
04:09 because there's a lot of things in the West,
04:12 a lot of new ingredients that we don't have in the West.
04:15 We don't even know about.
04:17 Most of the people don't know about.
04:19 And Western chefs, they're always,
04:21 especially in the fine dining area,
04:23 always eager to discover some new ingredients,
04:26 to be able to work with some new techniques, new flavors.
04:30 A lot of ingredients that we take for granted nowadays,
04:35 but all the--
04:36 no matter in Chinese cooking or in French cooking,
04:39 like half of the ingredients we use
04:41 are not native from our country.
04:44 So it's all coming from abroad.
04:46 So all this ingredient exchange is
04:48 something that's always been taking place
04:50 since human beings have been traveling around.
04:53 So in France, we're using star anise.
04:56 We're using eggplant.
04:58 All those came from China.
05:00 If in China, you're using chili, it came from South America.
05:04 So all those exchanges are always constantly taking place.
05:08 And I think now, yeah, a lot of Chinese ingredients
05:10 are making their way in the fine dining world.
05:14 So for example, the Sichuan pepper is one example.
05:17 It's becoming trendy because of its refreshing and numb taste.
05:23 It's something very new for the Western palate.
05:25 But I think it's interesting to see that French people are
05:28 using it in a very different way.
05:30 Some desserts, like you're using it
05:33 with chocolate, all those kind of pairing, which are not
05:35 some traditional pairings.
05:38 I think it's interesting to see how a different country will
05:42 use the same product in a very different way.
05:45 I think it's very exciting.
05:46 I think for me, the only way to improve
05:53 is just to share, share, share a lot of things,
05:56 create a lot of exchange.
05:58 Sharing what I learned with some Chinese friends,
06:01 with some Chinese chefs, what I learned in Chinese cuisine,
06:05 going to share it in Europe or in the West.
06:09 I think that can create that bridge and that bond
06:13 between the different countries.
06:17 And I think food is a great way to create those bridges.
06:21 Because when people are interested in the other
06:25 country's food, then they slowly, step by step,
06:28 through food, they're going to learn more about the geography,
06:31 about the people there, about the culture,
06:33 about the language, all those kind of things.
06:36 And I think that's a first step, like a first brick
06:39 to start to build a house where everybody can exchange
06:44 and can understand more about each other.
06:49 [MUSIC ENDS]
06:52 [AUDIO OUT]
06:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]