The Chefkoch Foodcamp 2017 We were invited

Germany's largest recipe website Chefkoch.de hosted the 5th Foodcamp on October 7th with this year's motto "Back To The Roots". We, Ryu and I, were invited out of the blue. The beautiful event location of the Confiserie Coppeneur in Bad Honnef was the perfect choice. But what is the Foodcamp, what was our impression and what we could take with us, we will present you in this post.

The Foodcamp - Food in abundance, no tents

Ryusei and I had never heard of the Foodcamp before. Only after we were contacted by Chefkoch, we researched this event and decided to accept the invitation. For the Foodcamp, a limited number of tickets were given to food bloggers, foodies, and interested parties. A total of about 150 invited guests were on site, who were looked after around the clock.

The 8-hour program was filled with interesting lectures, informative cooking sessions with renowned top chefs, as well as relaxing presentations of sinful products from various beverage and food manufacturers. The event location of the chocolate manufactory proved to be ideal, even though it seemed like a labyrinth to us at first. The events took place in separate rooms and kitchens, which you had to find at the beginning. Fortunately, the numerous small stands of exhibiting food companies helped us find the right rooms. Of course, only after we had designed our breakfast with freshly baked apple flambé, coffee and a bunch of chocolate balls. The event started at 10 am and we had to drive about 1.5 hours.

There was also a delicious meal from a food truck for lunch, offering Australian specialties. In any case, the motto was Taste of Australia and there were, for example, kangaroo pies with salad. I didn't get a photo, because I immediately sucked up my tasty food. My personal highlight was also that every participant received a voucher for the chocolate manufactory. In the break, you could create your own chocolate in the house with many toppings using this voucher. Very nice, if you are ever on the A3 near Bonn, stop by the chocolate manufactory. It is located directly at the motorway exit. But now let's get to the content.

The Lectures

The event offered food tastings and cooking sessions in addition to lectures. Ryu and I listened to several lectures.

Keynote on Think Global - Eat local - Valentin Thurn

The first lecture, where all the people of the Foodcamp were present, was given by Mr. Thurn, who is known, among other things, for the emotional films Taste the Waste and 10 Million: How will we all be fed? Since the audience mainly consisted of people from the food industry, this lecture offered a very good introduction to the Foodcamp, which was both emotional and thought-provoking.

From Zero to Hero: How to get started on Pinterest correctly! - Christina Reichmann, Chefkoch.de

Both Ryusei and I were present at this lecture, as this topic interested us the most. Here, the social media editor of Chefkoch.de presented the platform Pinterest and how to use Pinterest as a food blogger. In this lecture, Ryu and I unfortunately couldn't learn anything new, because what Ms. Reichmann talked about, we already do. Nevertheless, the content was interesting and informative for some listeners. Unfortunately, Ms. Reichmann did not mention any specific numbers that Chefkoch receives through Pinterest. We are all about numbers and facts, haha. Despite a lot of information, we had the feeling that the listeners were not given any specific approaches, for example, no tools and programs were mentioned that make maintaining Pinterest much easier.

My Internship at SoSein - Uwe Spitzmüller, Highfoodality

In this lecture, Mr. Spitzmüller talked with beautiful storytelling about a topic that actually sounds boring. He completed an internship at a restaurant near Nuremberg, as he wanted to try something new in his life. Here, he introduced us to the restaurant SoSein and vividly described his short but instructive internship period. With beautiful food photos and a sustainable business idea of SoSein, the lecture definitely piqued our interest and sparked the need to visit SoSein sometime.

Blogger Relations: What matters - Panel discussion with representatives from Kitchen Aid, Spicebar, Siegfried Gin and Chefkoch.de

Here, a small round table discussion was held on stage. Representatives of companies (mainly startups) and bloggers were present. They discussed influencer marketing and how important a good and respectful relationship between bloggers and companies should be.

The Tastings

The tastings were about the tasting of alcoholic beverages, which were presented by their small producers. These included vodka, gin and wine, for example. Ryu and I did not participate in the tastings, because we prioritized the lectures and cooking sessions. Nevertheless, we would have liked to have participated in the tastings, because the topics and the rush were enormous.

The Cooking Sessions

The cooking sessions were the special highlight of the Foodcamp for us. In total, the program offered 7 cooking sessions, which ranged from baking to homemade pasta and Japanese cuisine to fine caramel making, which was even led by the founder of the Confiserie Coppeneur Oliver Coppeneur. Of course, we were more interested in the Japanese cooking sessions than the others, as we also wanted to dedicate our limited time to the parallel lectures, discussions and tastings. Out of the 7 cooking sessions, we ultimately attended 2.

Unfortunately, there was no Korean cooking session, because I (Matthias) would have liked to see Korean cuisine at such an event. One more reason to commit myself even more to this wonderful cuisine, so that it will also be represented at such events once.

Cooking Session 1 - Japanese Fine Dining

At this cooking session, top chef Christian Sturm-Wilms (awarded a Michelin star and starred chef from Yunico) cooked two of his latest creations of Japanese cuisine and prepared them for tasting.

What I was able to take away from this cooking session was the insight that I will probably never be able to prepare such fantastic luxury dishes myself. Rather, I have added a visit to Yunico to my bucket list. I would love to try the arts of the starred chef and activate all my taste buds.

Cooking Session 2 - The wonderful world of miso

Claudia Zaltenbach is the operator of the well-known food blog "Dinner um Acht" and led this interesting cooking session, which specialized in the fermented soybean paste miso. In this cooking session, she conjured up a very tasty miso soup in the Japanese style and spicy soba noodles with a spicy miso dressing.

Claudia is an enthusiastic cook and a die-hard fan of the Japanese soybean paste miso. In her new book Miso: Recipes - Culture - People she takes you to a new world of miso. You and we have never experienced miso like this before.

Conclusion

As early as we arrived in Bad Honnef, the event was over just as quickly. During the 8 hours, which felt like 2 hours, we met many new people and bloggers with similar interests, ate many delicacies, listened to exciting lectures and were even able to take home a small gift, a goodie bag, filled with products from the exhibitors and companies who had exhibited their products.