If you are not reconciled, let's have a showdown. The birth of Taiwan School lunch Competition

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The Japanese Baseball Jiaziyuan Summer Competition, which entered the 100th year, ended with the Golden foot Agricultural University from Akita Prefecture in the northeast, nicknamed "Weeds Legion," against the star-studded Tongyin University in Osaka. Although Xiaomi failed to beat the whale in the end, the spirit of never giving up, coupled with the warm-blooded burning of pitcher Huixing Yoshida's 881 balls in six games, has written a splendid poem that can go down in history.

Unlike the Japanese Baseball Park, which has a long history and exclusive high school youth, few people know that dietitians and cooks who work silently in the school kitchen day after day also have their own games. Sponsored by the 21st Century Conception Research Society, a non-governmental organization, the National School Jiazi Garden, which has been opened since 2006, has more than 2,000 teams competing for the country's strongest school lunch title every year, leaving behind many memorable stories.

Matsuhiro Matsumaru, a dietitian who competed on behalf of Tokyo in 2013, not only became the first man to win the winning flag, but his experience was remade into the drama "the Queen's nutritious lunch," played by famous actress Yuki Tianhai. As a nutritionist in Takefang, a representative of Ehime Prefecture in 2017, her sons, Wu Fang and Hong, also broke into the final 12 of 2013, writing down the record of the first time mother and son entered the school's Jiazi Garden final.

I still remember that when we went to Tokyo, Japan for an interview last year, we clearly felt the solemn atmosphere emanating from the competition. It was not a general cooking competition, but a fierce battle of 24 staff shouldering the honor of their hometown and professional ability to gamble. Make good use of local ingredients and present local culture in a small dinner plate.

This spring, we decided to organize the first national school lunch competition in the history of Taiwan, hoping to learn from the experience of Japan so that excellent dietitians and cooks who work hard can be recognized. As soon as the news came out, it raised a lot of questions.

"Taiwan is different from Japan. This kind of competition is meaningless. I will never take part in it." "there are more than 10,000 dietitians in Japanese schools, but there are no more than 400 in Taiwan, and not every school has them. It's very difficult!". "some counties and cities have been run, but nutritious lunches have not changed." "our school has a budget of only NT $30 for a meal, so how can we win NT $55 for a meal in Taipei?"

In order to solve the practical difficulties faced by Taiwan's schools in providing meals, it can be said that it takes great pains to design the brochure of the competition.

In order to encourage schools without dietitians to actively participate in the competition, a publishing group is set up especially outside the competition group; there is no restriction on the cost of food materials, just in the hope that the participating team will provide school food that can actually be supplied. The director of the horse farm, the founder of the national school in Japan, was invited as the international judge, and the dietitian and regulator of the Yuduo Municipal Food Center, who was awarded the quasi-excellence of the school in 2017, were invited to Taiwan to demonstrate cuisine. The champion of the Taiwan competition even had the opportunity to go to Japan to personally experience the charm of the school Jiazi Garden. All hope to promote people-to-people exchanges, so that Taiwan school lunches can stand on the international stage.

School lunch must be terrible, huh? The budget is not as good as the people are doomed to failure? School dietitians and chefs, this fall, stand on the cooking table and have a showdown, making the ingredients and culture born from the soil of your hometown proud, like Huixing Yoshida and Jinzu farmers who burn their blood and move countless audiences.

History always belongs to those who dream bravely.

Wen | Chen Ruwei (School lunch 22 Project team)

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