KUCHING: Kuching Chefs Association (KCA) made a courtesy call on the Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Minister Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah at her office in the Baitul Makmur building here, yesterday.
The delegation led by its president Abang Abdul Rahman, also included secretary-general Judy Sung, Public Relations director Joseph Martin Pudun, Education director Binyas Suem and Membership director Laura Bara. Also present was the pioneer Sous Chef of Hilton Hotel, Rajanoor Akmar.
The visit was to invite her to assume responsibility as Patron of KCA.
Kuching Chefs Association (KCA) is an organisation of professional chefs and industry partners with focus on promoting and advancing the culinary culture in Sarawak.
With the exposure from culinary experts and professionals, the delegation informed that fruit-carving is one of the activities planned with the help from the ministry in facilitating a platform for the activity to take place.
According to Fatimah, the courtesy call is also aimed at forming a strategic partnership between KCA and her ministry.
“We believe the collaboration could benefit our clients under the ministry as well as empowering the non-governmental organisations (NGOs),” she said.
“Apart from the effort to achieve the association’s objectives, the strategic partnership can also help women and youths to venture into the culinary field and consider it as a serious career prospect and a basis for entrepreneurs where it could help provide employment, increase the household income, enhance ways to reduce poverty as well as to uphold the social and economic status of the family itself,” Fatimah continued.
“Therefore, we welcome the programmes and activities that the KCA can do to ensure that the Sarawak traditional cuisine can be preserved and to increase its quality and presentation to the global stage,” she told the reporters after the courtesy call.
Fatimah added, “So far, some of our local cuisines have names throughout the nation such as Sarawak Laksa and Kolo Mee.”
To her, those are not enough because the presentations of the dishes could still be further improved to the level of international recognition, adding that this held true to various other state ethnic cuisines which should also be elevated.
This is in line with KCA’s objective of mentoring and nurturing young generation of chefs in Sarawak to be on par with the industry requirement and standard as well as enhancing image of chefs so that the profession is recognised as an important asset to the tourism industry.
Other than that, KCA aims to establish professional skills and standards for chefs and to increase their application through certified professional culinary programmes and participation in regional, national and international culinary competitions in conjunction with hotel and food processing industrial trade fairs which would strive to grow and groom a new generation of talented professionals.
Fatimah stated, “Food is important and becomes an integral part of the food industry that has the potential to become a lucrative career. Thus, the ministry thinks the collaboration would bring a lot of benefits.”
She also reminded that the collaboration must extend its efforts to a wider coverage to both rural and urban areas because she wanted the youths especially from the rural areas to be included in the exposure of the culinary as a potential career.
“I want the collaboration to be able to reach out to the youth community in the rural areas where opportunities are made available for them to participate in the programmes planned to gain knowledge on culinary skills as well as to cultivate interest in the field,” she concluded.
