To help hospitality and food and beverage professionals understand more about Macanese cuisine, IFT hosted the Macanese Cuisine Cooking Demonstration Workshop on 21 December 2011. Ms. Graca Pacheco Jorge was invited to share the concepts of Macanese cuisine and demonstrate five traditional recipes.

GRAÇA, born in Macao, is descendent of an ancient Macanese family. In 1992, she wrote the book “A Cozinha de Macau de Casa do Meu Avô” which was edited by the Instituto Cultural de Macau and reedited by Editorial Presença in Lisboa in 2003. In 1999, she was invited by the Japanese TV Channel (NHK) to participate in a prime time Tokyo TV Show, to talk about Macanese culture and gastronomy. In 2004 she participated in several programmes for the Portuguese National TV about Macanese Cuisine. Throughout the period of 2009 to 2011, she has maintained her activity of divulging the Macanese gastronomy with workshops, theoretical and practical classes, in partnership with Macau Tourism Promotion and Information Centre in Lisbon, and Casa de Macau (Lisboa). In June 2010, she was being elected as “Confreira de Mérito da Confraria de Gastronomia de Macau”.

The workshop composed of five sessions: Macanese Cuisine Introduction, Introduction of five Traditional Macanese Cuisine, Recipe Sharing and Cooking Method Demonstration, Food Tasting and Q&A. Participants gained a lot of basic knowledge about Macanese cuisine through the demonstration and recipe sharing. The workshop attracted a total of 27 chefs from hotels and restaurants.

IFT has always been dedicated to organise promotions of different ethnic cuisines for the public. At the same time, it arouses the interests of food service industry in Macao to explore more ideas in cooking. Through “Country Traditional Cuisine Introduction & Cooking Demo Series” IFT forms a communication platform for local and overseas chefs. The institute will make more efforts to offer more training programmes to help enhance the knowledge and skills of industry professionals.