Japanese students learn to be top French chefs

(24 Mar 2017) LEADIN:
Young Japanese students are learning the secrets to French cuisine at a chateau near Lyon.
The cooking school is specially tailored to people from Japan - to give them a better chance of working with the best French restaurants when they return home.
STORYLINE:
Cutting meats, stirring pots and decorating plates, these Japanese students are learning how to be a top French chef.
It's long, meticulous work performed under the watchful eyes of their French teachers at Ecole Hoteliere Tsuji (Hospitality Industry School Tsuji) in Liergues, near the city of Lyon, in central France.
For the last 50 years the institute has been the unrivalled go-to address for Japanese students aspiring to become masters of French cuisine.
Aime Nallet, a professor at the Ecole Hoteliere Tsuji, explains what inspires them to travel all the way from Japan to France.
"Students come here from Japan to discover our culture and then our products, because there's a quite a difference between Japanese and French products. They also come here to be close to some of the greatest French chefs during the demonstrations that take place at the school and later during their internship."
Each course lasts just over five months. Classes are taught in French and translated into Japanese by an on-site translator.
Nallet, who's been teaching at the school for nearly 30 years, says the courses are two-fold: they include French cuisine classes as well as pastry-making, where students learn to bake and prepare sweets that will be sold in shops (as opposed to baking for the restaurant business).
In addition, the school teaches restaurant service - where students will learn the job of waiting tables and serving customers - as well as French language.
Yamashita Takahiro is a 20-year-old student from the Japanese prefecture of Hyogo. He explains that he's here in order to study authentic French pastry-making.
"Had I remained in Japan the pastry-making courses that I would have attended would have been tailored for Japanese people and would have not taught authentic French pastry", he explains. "So I came to France to have the chance to study French pastry, French cakes from the place where they originated and to see how to remake them."
Once classes in Lyon are completed, the Japanese students embark on an internship at a prestigious, often Michelin-starred, French restaurant or pastry shop for the next four months.
Kana Mieda is a 20-year-old student from the prefecture of Gifu in Japan. She wants to pass on what's she's learning in France when she returns home.
"I would like to work for about six months as an assistant at the Ecole Hoteliere Tsuji in Osaka or Tokyo in order to transmit my passion for (French) cuisine and, at the same time, to transfer to other students all the great experience I've acquired through my studies", she says.
Learning the art of French cooking requires intensive training and comes at a price: a course at the Ecole Hoteliere Tsuji costs 3,500,000 Japanese yen, the equivalent of 29,000 Euros (or 30,300 US dollars). Tuition fees include lodging at the school.
But the price is well worth it, says Nallet. The training offers Japanese students the guarantee of finding future employment back home and to quickly climb the ladder in the restaurant business.
"Upon returning to Japan our students already enjoy great notoriety. They have a list of addresses of restaurants which hire students coming back from France. In truth the time they spend in France allows them to get ahead by four, five years compared to attending courses in Japan", he says.
The Ecole Hoteliere Tsuji was founded in 1960 by Japanese food writer and president of one of the most prestigious chef schools in Japan, Shizuo Tsuji.


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