Riding the wind of rebirth

“I’ll call them right now.” Zhou Zhi pulled out his flip phone, the Motorola StarTAC238, from his bag. It was the famous “pocket-sized” phone in history. He started dialing.

This phone is the latest model this year and also the best-selling phone. It has not yet been released in mainland China. This phone is a so-called "official" product from Hong Kong that Li Laosan brought to Zhouzhi.

"Old Zhang, guess why I called you? Missing your cooking? That's a bit much... I have some good news for you. It's not that I've discovered another great ingredient, it's that I've discovered the lineage of a royal cuisine. Don't believe me? Hehehe, remember the 'Torn Ear Noodles' you told me about? What? Lost to you? Let me tell you, this bowl of noodles is right in front of me now. Now I know why it's called 'Torn Ear Noodles'—it's hand-torn, like rabbit ears... How could it not be? That's right, this is a skill only the third branch of the Lan family knows, and now a descendant of the third branch of the Lan family is right in front of me! Hahahaha, don't believe me? I'll have him tell you!"

After saying that, he handed the phone to Lan Guiyun.

Lan Guiyun was quite nervous when the phone rang: "What should I call you?"

"In terms of seniority, you should call him 'Teacher Brother'."

"Oh, senior brother, my name is Lan Guiyun, my dad's name is Lan Youfang, my grandpa's name is Lan Chaogui, and Lan Guangbi is my great-great-grandfather. Yes... I heard that my great-great-grandfather traveled for a while and then stayed in Huili... Yes, we are in Huili now. My father and I are the only two people in our family with the surname Lan. Yes, I'm cooking now, but I don't know if it's imperial cuisine. I can make 'torn ear noodles,' and fish and rice soup? I was just eating fish and rice soup. The most time-consuming dish passed down from our ancestors? That should be meat-stuffed bean sprouts... Hahaha, senior brother, you're testing me. You want to come see me? Oh, I can't accept that. I should be the one visiting you. It's just that I have to cook at the shop and can't leave. I haven't even told our regular customers that I'm not making any money. You know, it's hard to run a restaurant in a small town... Okay, okay, I'll be waiting, I'll be waiting, you're welcome anytime! Pork knuckle? Who's pork knuckle? Oh, Mr. Zhou..."

He quickly handed the phone back to Zhou Zhi: "My senior brother said you should answer it."

"See? I wasn't lying, was I?" Zhou Zhi answered the phone, smiling smugly.

Zhang Yuanfu was very excited: "The school is busy with the selection process for chefs to be sent to Hong Kong Island, and they're a bit overwhelmed. Tell Xiao Lan that we'll go see him in a while, at most a month. The Lan family's culinary skills are still being passed down, it's not easy..."

"I remember you said that the eldest son's family was in charge of the kitchen, the second son's family was in charge of the banquets, and the third son's family was in charge of the finances. How come it seems that the third son's family is also quite good at cooking?"

"Stop talking nonsense in front of my junior brother! I did say they each manage their own affairs, but when did I ever say the person in charge of finances in the third branch can't cook? Do you think all of the hundred-plus chefs were trained by me?" Zhang Yuanfu stopped Zhou Zhi's rambling. "I have to inform the sect right away about this great news. Thank you so much, Zhouzi! You've relieved us of a worry that has weighed on our minds for years! I'll hang up now! You're truly my lucky star!"

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Zhi laughed and said, "The old man was so happy that he forgot. You write down your contact number and address for me in a little while, and I will write down his phone number for you too. He hung up in a hurry before we even talked about the contact information, saying that he had to inform your great-grandfather and great-grandfather."

"Thank you so much, Mr. Zhou!" Lan Guiyun said, both excited and thrilled. "You're truly our lucky star! Just having a meal here has allowed us to reconnect with relatives we haven't seen in years!"

People still value kinship very much these days, which is completely different from the situation decades later. The couple toasted Zhou Zhi again before toasting and greeting everyone else.

Zhou Zhi then introduced Lan Guiyun to the historical status of the Lan family in Sichuan cuisine. This girl seemed to have been tricked by her ancestors and had no idea that her family had laid the foundation for a major cuisine. Many of the dishes she had were the most authentic imperial dishes, and some of them were even lost recipes.

"Recently, Cantonese cuisine has become increasingly popular across the country, while Sichuan cuisine has shifted more towards the mass market and is becoming more and more like the characteristics of Jianghu cuisine, with heavy oil, strong flavor, and numbing spiciness as the main features. Dishes like today's are actually hard to find on the market."

"What the market needs is a point of profit, that's certainly true, but the market is also divided into low-end and high-end," Zhou Zhi said. "As people's living standards improve, their demands for health increase, and their taste in food becomes more refined, imperial cuisine will eventually return to the market." In fact, based on Zhou Zhi's experience, imperial cuisine is quite popular, but its popularity is concentrated in places like Suihuaxuan, Rongleyuan Xiaoyazhai, and Jinjiang Hotel, mainly catering to political and business elites, and is not well known to the outside world.

Although these places do not primarily aim to profit from catering, the revenue from this area is actually quite substantial.

Zhou Zhi had intended to recruit Lan Guiyun to Suihuaxuan to further develop the imperial cuisine, but since they hadn't met well enough at their first meeting, it wasn't appropriate to bring it up.

The environment here isn't really suitable for the development of imperial cuisine, but thanks to her solid culinary skills, she combines imperial cuisine with home-style dishes, and her business is quite good. It's also clear that she really likes to put her mind to developing new dishes; otherwise, the front desk staff would have removed many of the elaborate dishes from the menu.

Zhou Zhi really liked this kind of thoughtful person, and the two started discussing cooking techniques as they chatted.

"What bean sprouts did Old Zhang just test you on?"

"Oh, my senior asked what the most time-consuming dish in our class is. I guess he wanted to test me, so I just told him what I knew: meat-stuffed bean sprouts."

"I think Wensi Tofu is the most difficult dish to make. You cut soft tofu into thin strips, add broth to make it into a chrysanthemum shape, and then steam it to make the dish."

Li Laosan had enjoyed this dish with Zhou Zhi at Zhang Yuanfu's place before, and nodded repeatedly.

"Compared to bean sprouts with meat filling, Wensi tofu is relatively simple," Lan Guiyun said. "The method for making bean sprouts with meat filling is to remove both ends of the bean sprouts, take only the silvery-white middle section, stuff the center of the bean sprout with meat sauce, drizzle with oil and cook before serving."

"How is that possible?" Xu Anxin was dumbfounded. "This can't be a legend, can it?"

“I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before.” Zhou Zhi frowned and recalled, “It seems to be a court dish called ‘Inlaid Silver Sprouts’ or ‘Stuffed Bean Sprouts’. It was made by the Imperial Kitchen when Empress Dowager Cixi didn’t want to eat meat one day. She asked the Imperial Kitchen to make a light-tasting bean sprout dish with meat but no meat in it. The Imperial Kitchen put a lot of thought into it and came up with this dish. Empress Dowager Cixi liked it very much and it became a staple dish in the court.”

"That old hag is going too far!" Li Yijia exclaimed angrily, "How is this possible?!"

“It’s actually possible,” Lan Guiyun said. “Just first use a thick needle to poke through the bean sprouts to make a small channel, then use a thin needle to thread a clean cotton thread through it. After the cotton thread passes through the chicken paste, thread the thin needle through the bean sprouts and pull the white thread out from the other end. Some of the chicken paste will remain in the bean sprouts.”

"After repeating this process several times, the small channels in the bean sprouts will be filled with minced chicken. Finally, drizzle with oil and it becomes a dish."

"Are you trying to trick me into doing this?" Zhou Zhi looked at Lan Guiyun suspiciously, feeling that his motives were not pure. "This is too much work. And how can you guarantee that the needle will go straight through the bean sprout and not come out halfway?" (End of this chapter)