Traditional Bhutanese culinary trainings are helping revive some lost and forgotten age-old cuisines of the country. Additionally, such training are also helping trainees venture into new enterprises.
One such training was held in Bumthang which ended today. About 40 of them in all, the trainees are mostly hoteliers from Bumthang and neighbouring districts. Few of them have completed secondary education. They have been trained to prepare some 25 varieties of Bhutanese cuisines over the last one week.
The traditional Bhutanese culinary training was held for the first time in Bumthang, one of the tourist hotspots of the country.
The Dzongkhag Business Representative of Bumthang, Phurpa said, “We have lots of hotels and guest houses in Bumthang. So we thought such training is necessary for the people here. Though we have an annual training provided by Tourism Council of Bhutan on continental dishes, we never had one such as this”.
The trainings also open doors for the participants to explore new ways to make money.
“What something new I have learnt from this training is that if we exhibit and serve tourists our Bhutanese cuisines, I think it’s going to be wonderful. So, I want to learn the cooking skills well to prepare and serve the dishes next time,” said a hotel manager, Tandin Wangdi.
For some, they received hands on experience to prepare a proper traditional home cuisine for the first time.
“I have been working in guest houses for so many years now but I don’t have a proper experience in preparing Bhutanese cuisines. So, I am grateful to the organisers for this training. I am learning a lot about something that I love doing and I want to share the knowledge to my staff as well so that they get new opportunities for themselves,” added an hotelier, Tshering Wangmo.
Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry in collaboration with the Department of Human Resources under the labour ministry arranged the training. Other districts will also see such trainings soon.
