Dubai WACS Congress Day Two
Monday, May 12th, 2008Today’s events started out with an exceptional series of presentation from the countries vying to host the 2012 Congress. India, South Korea, Portugal and Sri Lanka all represented their country and their intentions for our congress in an exciting series of 10-minute presentations.
All the countries had significant strengths and benefits and it took the delegates two rounds of run-off voting to finally agree that the Republic of Korea, will host the Congress in 2012.
This is especially significant for Hong Kong because it will mean that we can plan to send a large delegation and have significant presence in competitions.
Once the 2012 location was secured we were given a zesty presentation of what can be expected at the WACS congress 2010 in Chile. It would be a tiresome and expensive excursion to be sure, but the look and feel of Chile as presented is sure to excite whichever few lucky delegates we can send from Hong Kong.
During lunch we had a very special presentation of the produce from the ship of the dessert, the camel. We dine on pit-roasted camel and drank the slightly acidic camel milk. Both were delicious, the meat being quite similar to Kalua Pork, and the milk being low fat and similar in texture and taste to a skim yogurt drink. I was excited to see some large bones full of marrow on the camel tray and so just had to taste. I can tell you camel Ossobuco is just as tasty as the veal version. Perhaps in time some adventurous chef will serve it in Hong Kong.
The afternoon program was a vibrant panel discussion on Women Chefs in WACS. It was very good to see that, rather than segregating women as a special issue, there was an actual pledge and strong current of understanding among the panel and delegates that we should adopt a mission of celebrating diversity of every kind, and allowing chefs to be chefs without need of any arbitrary prejudicial measurement or segregation. A chef is a chef is a chef, and we are all in this together.
Of note also in this discussion was the need to move forward in our care of our employees, communities and environment as well. A special recognition was given that in many was the fast food industry has been beating us at feeding people economically and at community and employee care. We can certainly learn a thing or two from these industries and adding our values for nutrition and real, whole, sustainable cuisines, we can drive our profession into a future with the goal of a triple bottom line of: “People, Profit Planet.”
With the afternoon session drawn to a close we were on our own for the evening and so the Hong Kong Delegation spread to the four corners of the city for our a bit of private time.
Christopher Gallaga
Reporting From Dubai
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
