Business

Taiwan bakery chefs on mission to discover local flavors

Tomohiro Nogami (left) and Huang Wei-hsun toil up to 10 hours a day by the furnace practicing for the upcoming Bread World Cup in Paris. (Staff photos/Chen Mei-ling)

• Publication Date：02/18/2012
• Source： Taiwan Today
• By  Kwangyin Liu

Although bread is not a traditional component of Taiwanese food, bakery products have in recent years gained momentum among Taiwan’s consumers, with fancy boulangeries sprouting up in one neighborhood after another.

“When I started out with my first bakery in Nankan, almost none of my neighbors thought it would work out,” said Tomohiro Nogami, a Japanese immigrant who started out in a suburb of Taipei four years ago. Luckily for Nogami, interest in European-style bread has soared, and he has been able to open a second store in Taipei that sells as many as 500 baguettes a day. “The market for bread has definitely gotten bigger,” he said.

This surge in popularity can largely be attributed to Wu Pao-chun, the Pingtung-born 42-year-old bakery chef who won the coveted Bakery Master title at the 2010 Bakery World Cup in Paris.

“I did not just want to be a good bread maker; I wanted to learn more about baking and take on greater challenges,” Wu said during a previous interview with Taiwan Today. “That was when I made up my mind that baking the perfect bread would be my lifetime pursuit.”

Wu acquired his baking skills in Japan, but his winning loaves are very much a product of Taiwan. His masterpiece, the one that won over the Parisian judges, stood out because of its unique blend of flavors and textures from Taiwan—millet wine, dried lychee and rose petals.

Following in Wu’s footsteps, three young bakers representing Taiwan are also gearing up for this year’s Bakery World Cup scheduled to take place March 3 to 7 in Paris, where they will continue to incorporate local specialties into their creations.

Polo Huang hopes that his mission of using locally grown ingredients to make bread will also make life easier for hard-working local farmers.

“Taiwan has delicious fruit and vegetable products to make bread with,” said Nogami, who is also coaching the three young men. “For example, pineapple, longan and sweet potato all make excellent bread toppings.” One of Boulangerie Nogami’s popular items, featuring locally produced dried mango, pineapple and roselle flowers, is a Taiwanese version of its French cousin, made with dried pears, raisins and walnuts, he said.

The three teammates, Lin Kun-wei, Chang Tai-chien and Huang Wei-hsun, have been preparing for years for the opportunity to take part in the monumental contest, where they will face the challenge of baking 250 loaves of bread in 8.5 hours.

Though exactly what local ingredients they will use at the competition must remain a secret until the contest, their prospect of winning looks good enough. “They are very talented and experienced and I have total confidence in them,” Nogami said.

The passion for infusing Taiwan flavors in bread making has not only forged an award-winning strategy, but is fast becoming a guideline for local bakery chefs looking to popularize the trade.

Hogan Bakery, an artisan bakery in Taipei, recently found its holy grail not from abroad, but deep in Taiwan’s mountainous areas.

“Many of the stuffing ingredients used to make bread in Taiwan are imported, such as chocolate, walnuts and dried cranberries,” said Polo Huang, founder of Hogan, which now has four shops in Taipei.

“As the owner of a locally grown enterprise, I consider it part of my mission to introduce flavors exclusive to Taiwan, so that the breads we make are not only fresh but also beneficial to local farmers.”

In line with the global locavore movement—the preference for locally produced foods over imported ones—Huang believes this is a natural move because Taiwan has an abundance of delicious produce.

Since 2011, Huang has been making journeys around the island in search of local specialties that can be used in making bread. Last April he initiated the bakery’s contract farming program with a lemon farmer in Taichung’s hilly town of Xinshe, which grows high-quality, organic lemons exclusively for Hogan. Huang turns the lemons into ingredients for lemon yeast bread and fresh lemon cakes.

“With the individually signed contracts, we can better guarantee the quality of the fruit direct from the field to the furnace.”

Hogan Bakery’s sweet bread is made with pumpkins grown in southern Taiwan’s Xiaolin Village.

In September, on a quest for the best pumpkins in Taiwan, Huang ventured into Xiaolin, the ill-fated mountain village in southern Taiwan that was buried when Typhoon Morakot struck in 2009. Huang promised three pumpkin farmers living in what remained of the village that he would purchase their produce at a set price. They now provide him each month with around 1,000 kilograms of Xiaolin pumpkins.

As a result of contract farming with Huang, the farmers are assured that their produce will find a buyer when it reaches maturity. By eliminating middlemen, they have been able to garner approximately 30 percent more profits than before.

When the pumpkins arrive at Huang’s store, they are turned into a golden pumpkin puree, which is then mixed with cheese, cream and pumpkin seeds. The resulting mixture becomes filling used in three types of bread sold at the store. “The pumpkins are healthy and delicious, and have nothing to do with the exploitation of individual farmers,” Huang said.

Constantly seeking to better the bakery’s menu, Huang continues his search for hidden gems. His recent finds include lychee from Changhua and pineapples from Pingtung.

“Our goal is to collect all the best local ingredients that each county in Taiwan has to offer,” Huang said with pride.

“We hope other bakeries start doing the same,” he added. “By shortening the distance between food growers and consumers, we hope that local farmers can earn a better living; at the same time we hope to make our trade friendlier to the environment.”

Although their best products derive from a long lineage of European boulangerie traditions, local bread makers are undoubtedly invigorating Taiwan’s taste buds and rebuilding lost connections between the field and the dining table. (HZW)

Write to Kwangyin Liu at kwangyin.liu@mail.gio.gov.tw