From hamburgers to ancient herbs, cooking for China's Olympic athletes requires an element of compromise, a wide knowledge of regional cuisine and, for some, a basic grounding in traditional Chinese medicine.

Ding Haiquan,chief chef at the pastry department,shows off his freshly baked cornflour cake topped with dates.

For almost 27 years, chef Han Jianjing has cooked for the 13 national sports teams who train at the General Administration of Sport in Beijing's Chongwen District. Like the rest of his colleagues, he starts at 6 a.m. and ends when the last dinner plate is clean in the evening. This grueling regime continues for six days a week, but there are no complaints from the 100-plus chefs.

"I feel so happy when the athletes are scrambling for the dishes I cooked," said head chef Liu Yumin. "My family and friends all envy my job. They always ask what their favorite athletes are like in real life."

Some 86 of China's 112 Olympic gold medalists graduated from the training centers of the General Administration of Sport, as well as over 782 of the country's 1,899 world champions. All of them ate at what has now been dubbed the "gold medalists' canteen."

Customized menus

Deputy director Han said the culinary team does its best to please them all.

"Different teams have different preferences about food. We try our best to satisfy their individual needs," he said.

For example, most of the paddling and badminton team members are from the south of China, where people prefer lightly flavored food, while those from the athletic, swimming and weightlifting teams are mostly from the north, where people regularly eat food braised in soy sauce.

"The food for those young athletes from the gymnastic and diving teams is cooked separately because they have to eat less greasy food to keep slim.

"Some of the athletes in these two teams are just kids, so we have to give them pizza or McDonald's hamburgers once a week to keep them happy," said Han.

The food allowance is 60 yuan ($8) a day for each of the 600 athletes - not quite enough to make ends meet at the canteen, which tries to maintain high standards.

It provides everything to the athletes for free. The fridge is loaded with fruit drinks that sell for 7 yuan in the market, compared to a tin of Coca Cola that only costs 2 yuan. Some swimmers will eat as much as 500 grams of shrimp in a meal to get enough protein.

The purchasing department only buys meat, vegetables, seafood and fruit with "green" tags. They even carry out on-site inspections before signing contracts with their meat suppliers.

In addition to preparing tasty and nutritious meals, the chefs are also required to innovate.

"Generally speaking, athletes train here for 8 to 10 years, and for most of the time, they are not allowed to eat outside. If we do not change our menus frequently, they will easily get bored," said Han.

For every regular meal, the buffet has to have a variety of 12 meat courses, five vegetable courses and at least two cold dishes, even the pastry dishes have to have at least five choices. The menu cannot be repeated in the same week.

This means the chefs have to be jacks-of-all-trades as well as specialists. The chief chef at the pastry department can make over 300 kinds of pastry dishes.

"Even for dumplings, I can make them into five shapes, for example, ingot, willow leaf and coin wallet-shaped," he said.

Chefs are entitled to a bonus if they devise new dishes and they sometimes travel to other provinces to learn about local delicacies.

No place like home

The Chinese character for "family" is posted at the gate of the canteen, reminding everyone that they are part of a larger team.

According to 51-year-old Liu Jingru, who is in charge of the daily management of the canteen, their guideline is to "treat the senior athletes as their brothers and sisters and the younger athletes as their own children".

"The athletes here are coming from every part of China and some of them are very young. We want to give them a warm feeling of being at home," said Liu. "I sometimes feel like their mother."

Even the parents of world-record- breaking hurdler Liu Xiang asked her to take care of their son before they went back to their hometown.

"The first thing the athletes do when they come back from a competition outside Beijing is tell me, 'Oh, it's so good to be back home,'" Liu said.