RIMINI, Italy – Japan has won the World Junior Pastry-making Championship. After two days of tests and 14 hours´ work, the pastry art´s best newcomers are from the land of the rising sun.
This is the result of the competition that was a key event on the first two days of SIGEP, at Rimini Fiera, with nine nations from five continents competing in the great Pastry Arena: Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia, France, Poland, Croatia, Brazil and Russia.
Italy was missing, but only because, being the current champion, is could not take part in the contest.
The Japanese team was formed by team manager Kajiro Mochizuki, the great Master Pastry Chef at Tokyo´s Imperial Hotel, one of Japan´s most famous and historical hotels (1,000 rooms and 55 pastry chefs at work), and by the young contestants Kazumasa Yoshida and Koushi Oyama.
France came second and Taiwan third. Precisely Japan and France divided the awards for the individual tests.
The French chefs received those for the best mille-feuille dessert, the best chocolate cake, cleanliness and preparation.
The Japanese those for the best gelato dessert in a glass, the best praline and the best chocolate sculpture. Taiwan won the award for the best sugar sculpture.
The international jury´s president was Pierre Hermé, from Alsace, known worldwide as the ´Picasso of Pastry´.
The panel of judges was completed by master pastry chef Davide Malizia (manager of the winning Italian team in 2013) and the manager of each of the competing nations, as well as four master pastry chefs, who formed the technical jury.
Honorary president was master pastry chef Iginio Massari. The Junior World Pastry Championship had as its theme Italian Food Style, a tribute to typical Italian food specialities, which had to be presented by mean of artistic works in sugar and chocolate and the confectionery ingredients laid down in the regulations.
So far, at SIGEP, Japan has won both the international contests: The Star of Sugar and the World Championship.
Iginio Massari, acknowledged as ´master of the Italian masters´, comments, ´These Asian boys show our youngsters how a strong work culture can ensure absolute competitiveness.
In this sense it´s a lesson to take advantage of. I hope the forms with which youngsters enter the employment world also soon loose their suffocating bureaucracy.
Seeing a boy crying with emotion transmits us the social value of work, something we are loosing in Europe.´
Livia Chiriotti, managing editor of Pasticceria Internazionale says, ´Crossover between world pastry cultures is of inestimable value. We have always admired the intense aesthetic style and sense of detail of Asian pastry chefs, and here we have observed their dedication to work.
The world´s emerging phenomenon is now the Middle East, which, with its recent economic boom, has attracted master pastry chefs from all over the world. The world´s new pastry culture will have to be discovered there.´
SIGEP´s Pastry Events are held under the supervision of a technical committee formed by Rimini Fiera, Roberto Rinaldini – Accademia Maestri Pasticceri Italiani, CASTAlimenti, Pasticceria Internazionale and Conpait.
The event, based on an idea by Roberto Rinaldini, is organized by Rimini Fiera and SIGEP in collaboration with CASTAlimenti and with the Patronage of the AMPI, Relais Dessert and Conpait.
Partner companies: Debic, Besozzi Oro and Valrhona; Event sponsors: Hausbrandt; Technical sponsors: Bragard, Bravo, Electrolux, Eurovo; Irinox, Rondo, Sacar, Sagi, Selmi, Silikomart and Sirman.
