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Baker returns home with silver cup

After winning joint second place with two other Taiwanese bakers at the 2008 Bakery World Cup in Paris on Wednesday, a local returned to the store where he works as a pastry chef in Kaohsiung on Saturday with a silver cup and a vow to set up a foundation to aid apprentices in financial plight.

Wu Pao-chun (吳寶春) said the idea for the foundation was inspired by his late mother, Chen Wu-hsien (陳無嫌), who raised him and his seven brothers and sisters single-handed.

Wu, 39, was born in Pingtung County and is the youngest in the family. He lost his father when he was a child. Unwilling to see his mother work so hard to raise her family, Wu dropped out of senior high school and traveled to Taipei to learn how to be a baker.

Since then, Wu has moved from one city to another absorbing various experiences and baking skills. Last May, Wu defeated the Chinese reigning champions at the World Cup Asian qualifying rounds, winning the “King of Asian Bakers” title.

Last Monday at the World Cup finals in Paris, Wu used his “secret weapon” — smoked dried longan — to make artisan bread with a flavor of his homeland. The dried longan bread made with sweet fermented rice wine was a hit with the judges.

Wu said he created the bread because he missed his late mother. When he was young, his mother used to cook longan soup with sweet fermented rice wine in the winter to keep out the cold, he said.

“Maybe it was the ‘flavor of mother’ that touched the judges’ hearts,” he said.

Wu said he would contribute his money, knowledge and skills to the Chen Wu-hsien Foundation to help apprentice bakers suffering from financial problems and hopefully train more Taiwanese world champion bakers.

Wu, Tsao Chih-hsiung (曹世雄) and Wen Shih-cheng (文世成) represented Taiwan in the Bakery World Cup, which was held between last Monday and Wednesday in Paris, and also won a ticket for the next competition, scheduled for 2012.

The triennial baking competition, the seventh of its kind, brought together 12 national teams, including the top three winners of the 2005 competition — the US, France and Japan — and nine other teams that qualified for the finals.

The other teams were from Turkey, Mexico, Argentina, Poland, Sweden, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.
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