From selling box lunches to becoming a famous Chinese chef

I have to say, when I came to Bincheng, whether in Wudi or walking from Wudi to Zhanhua.

In the countryside, almost every household has several jujube trees planted in front of and behind their houses.

The jujubes grown in Zhanhua are winter jujubes, which are larger in size than the golden thread jujubes grown in Wudi.

Moreover, a large-scale planting has also been formed in the countryside of Zhanhua.

Walking on the road, you can see rows of jujube trees.

Unlike golden thread dates, the surface of winter dates will not turn completely red when they are ripe.

It usually appears as a few spots or a reddish-brown patch.

Feng Zhengming continued to introduce the differences in dates to Ding Yuan, Gao Yongfu and Hou Dong as they walked.

"Golden thread dates are usually picked until they are bright red, then dried and made into the small red dates that we usually use to make soup, or they can be pickled with honey and made into candied dates.

Winter dates are picked when they start to change color and are ripe and eaten as fruit.”

Ding Yuan looked around and was surprised to see jujube trees almost everywhere.

"Brother Feng, there are so many jujube trees here. It feels like they are everywhere in the mountains."

Before Feng Zhengming could speak, a figure walked out from the jujube orchard nearby.

"Hahaha, how can this be considered a lot? We have restrictions on planting here now, otherwise there would be jujube trees everywhere."

Hearing the sound, Feng Zhengming and others looked in the direction of the sound.

He looked like a farmer wearing a blue cloth jacket.

Feng Zhengming immediately stepped forward and took the initiative to greet him: "Fellow villager, is this date orchard yours?"

When the other party was asked this question, a look of pride appeared on his face.

"Yes, this whole area is mine."

Then the other party looked at Feng Zhengming and the others, and asked curiously: "Where are you from? Are you here to buy dates? You came too early, the dates haven't even started to bear fruit yet."

Being thought to be someone who came here specifically to buy dates made Feng Zhengming and the others feel a little amused and helpless.

Gao Yongfu couldn't help but smile and responded: "Of course we know that the dates are not ripe yet, so we are not here to buy dates, we are just passing by."

Hou Dong followed up: "Yes, we are just passing by. We are traveling on foot."

"What? Hiking?" The farmer obviously had never heard of it. "What is that?"

Feng Zhengming smiled and explained to the other party.

After hearing the explanation, people who visited the date garden still felt incredible.

"You guys are going to walk all over our Qilu land with your two legs?"

Feng Zhengming smiled and nodded: "Yes, we can walk."

The other party gave his or her opinion almost without thinking.

"You guys really have a lot of free time. You are so young and don't work hard to make money. What can you do by just walking around Qilu?"

Feng Zhengming and the others could clearly see the contempt in the other party's words and expressions.

This is not surprising. After many years of reform and opening up, the concepts of most people in the country have changed.

Especially people like this who have unique agricultural products and make money from them.

In their eyes, now is the time to work harder and earn more money while they are still young.

People like Feng Zhengming who hang out here and there are simply wasting their precious youth.

Perhaps for this farmer, it would be better to take a walk in his own date orchard.

The three young men, Ding Yuan, Gao Yongfu and Hou Dong, were somewhat dissatisfied with the farmers' words and attitude.

But Feng Zhengming did not let the three of them get angry and stopped them.

With a smile on his face, he patiently explained to the farmers his ideas of traveling across the land of Qi and Lu.

"I just want to see with my own eyes the scenery and people in different places in our Qilu land, to see how you grow dates, and to see how your dates are sold all over the country.

I hope to see more and want to know what unique specialties there are in our Qilu land.

Perhaps in the future, we can bring together all these specialties of Qilu, so that more people can better understand Qilu through the specialties of different places in Qilu."

After hearing what Feng Zhengming said, the farmer's expression relaxed a lot.

He looked at Feng Zhengming and the others carefully again.

In particular, I saw that Feng Zhengming was carrying something that looked like a camera.

He asked curiously, "So you are reporters?"

Feng Zhengming looked down at the camera on his back when he heard it. He quickly smiled and waved his hand: "No, no, we are not reporters. I am actually a cook. I want to see the specialties from various places to see if there are any that can be used to cook."

The farmer stared at Feng Zhengming in surprise: "Are you a cook?"

"Yes, he's a cook." Feng Zhengming nodded with a smile.

The farmer looked at the other three people who were with Feng Zhengming.

"You are all cooks?"

The other three looked at each other, then nodded.

The farmer seemed a little unconvinced and looked at Feng Zhengming and the others carefully again.

Then he suddenly asked, "Can you guys come to my house to cook a meal at noon? Don't worry, I have all the ingredients at home, and I'll pay you whatever you want."

After hearing what the other party said, Feng Zhengming and the others felt a little strange?
Hou Dong looked alert: "What do you do? You paid us to cook at your house. What do you want to do?"

The farmer saw Ding Yuan, Gao Yongfu and Hou Dong protecting Feng Zhengming in the middle.

He also felt a little strange about this group of people?
However, the farmer still introduced himself first.

"My name is Ma Guoli, and I live in the village in front. You can come with me to take a look. Don't worry, our village has made money from growing dates over the years, but we will never do anything illegal or criminal."

After hearing what Ma Guoli said, Feng Zhengming couldn't help but think in his heart: Could it be that you have really done this before?
Of course, he didn't say this out loud, but Feng Zhengming still asked.

"So what do you mean you asked us to cook?"

Ma Guoli simply told the whole story again.

It turned out that there was a wedding banquet being held in their village. The person getting married was Ma Guoli's nephew. They were originally planning to go to Zhanhua city to find a chef, and Ma Guoli was the person in charge of finding the chef.

Unexpectedly, when he arrived in the city, he didn't know what day it was. Several famous restaurants were fully booked.

At the moment, they couldn't find a suitable chef to come to their village to help prepare the wedding banquet.

Ma Guoli didn't find the person and was worried about how to tell his family when he got back.

So I just wandered around in my own date orchard, and was a little afraid to go back.

As a result, he met Feng Zhengming and others, and he wanted to invite Feng Zhengming and others to go back to the village with him to give it a try.

If Feng Zhengming and his friends were good at cooking, he would be willing to pay a little more money and let Feng Zhengming and his friends help cook for his nephew's wedding banquet.

If Feng Zhengming and his friends' craftsmanship is not good enough, then he can still give an explanation to the villagers, especially to his eldest brother.

Ma Guoli was quite direct: "Hey guys, I don't know if you are real cooks or not. Anyway, you can come back to the village with me. Even if it's just to help me, so that I can give an explanation to my family, I will give you some travel expenses, how about it?"

At this point, from what Ma Guoli said, he seemed to still not believe in Feng Zhengming and his team's craftsmanship. This made Ding Yuan, Gao Yongfu and Hou Dong unbearable.

It’s okay to doubt their craftsmanship, but you can’t doubt Feng Zhengming’s craftsmanship, right?

Who is Feng Zhengming?
That was the champion of a serious national cooking competition.

He is the idol in the hearts of Ding Yuan, Gao Yongfu and Hou Dong.

How could these three people allow their idol to be looked down upon like this?

Gao Yongfu immediately refused: "We don't need your travel expenses. Since you look down on us and think we are deceiving you, why do you insist on us going back to the village with you? Let's go."

Ding Yuan and Hou Dong also echoed him, and both of them agreed with Gao Yongfu's statement.

Ma Guoli was a little puzzled when he saw this.

I thought, looking at the performance of these young people, are they really good cooks?

Could he be better than the chef from the best former state-owned restaurant in their city?

Ma Guoli felt that was absolutely impossible.

He still remembers that when he was in junior high school, he went there to eat with his older brother.

The craftsmanship at that time is still unforgettable to him.

I heard that the chef used to work for the best restaurant in Quancheng.

I came here when I went to the countryside to work.

Later, he started a family here and never went back. He continued to work as a chef in a state-owned restaurant until I heard that he retired several years ago.

It was after the master chef retired that the business of the state-owned restaurants in the city went downhill.

Later, the former chef took it upon himself to do the job.

Ma Guoli had been there before and thought the cooking was just okay.

But it is still far behind that master chef.

Thinking of this, Ma Guoli became even more curious about Feng Zhengming and the other four young men.

Seeing that three of them were clamoring to leave, Ma Guoli wanted to ask them to stay.

In the end, Feng Zhengming agreed.

"Okay, since we need some money to continue our journey, let's go to the village with you and try out the food. If you think our cooking skills are okay, we'll prepare a banquet for you."

Feng Zhengming's sudden agreement stunned everyone present.

No one expected that Feng Zhengming would agree to go to the village to cook.

Ding Yuan, Gao Yongfu and Hou Dong knew it very well.

With Feng Zhengming's cooking skills, how could his dishes not be approved once they were tried in the village?
What the three of them didn't understand was why Feng Zhengming wanted to show off his skills in the village?
Just to convince the villager who looked down on them?

Although they didn't understand why Feng Zhengming agreed to go, since Feng Zhengming agreed, the three of them had no objection.

Seeing this, Ma Guoli immediately became polite.

“I’m sorry for what happened just now, the four of you. I really didn’t mean to look down on you. I just found it strange that you are good chefs. Why would you come to our place instead of staying in restaurants or hotels in the city?

And what you said about walking all over Qilu, I really can’t imagine it.”

Feng Zhengming smiled and responded: "It doesn't matter. We are still young, so we want to take advantage of our youth to go out and see the beautiful mountains and rivers of our motherland. First of all, we naturally want to see the land of Qilu and our home."

After hearing what Feng Zhengming said, Ma Guoli couldn't help but look at him differently.

He suddenly felt that Feng Zhengming was indeed different from all the young people he had met.

Seeing that Ma Guoli was still looking at him, Feng Zhengming asked with a smile: "Brother, shall we go back to the village with you now?"

Ma Guoli immediately came to his senses and nodded: "Let's go back to the village."

Ma Guoli led the way, and Feng Zhengming and the other four followed behind.

Gao Yongfu couldn't help but whispered, "Brother Feng, why do we have to go to their village to cook? If they hold a wedding banquet in their village, they will definitely have to cook a lot of dishes. We don't need the money from their village, right?"

Hou Dong immediately agreed: "That's right, this guy surnamed Ma obviously looks down on us."

Feng Zhengming smiled and comforted the three people who were traveling with him.

"Put yourself in their shoes. If you were a villager and suddenly met a few people on the road who claimed to be backpacking and hiking all over Qilu, how would you react? Would you believe that they were great chefs?"

This question left the three people who were traveling with him speechless.

Feng Zhengming then continued to comfort them.

"Don't think that others look down on us. In fact, they don't look down on us. They just don't understand our behavior. Many times, people need to communicate more with each other. Only by communicating more can we understand each other."

After listening to Feng Zhengming's words, Ding Yuan, Gao Yongfu and Hou Dong all felt that it made sense.

The group followed Ma Guoli and not far away, they passed through the jujube forest and arrived at their village.

The village doesn't look small, and there are jujube trees in front of and behind every house in the village.

Feng Zhengming saw this and asked Ma Guoli with a smile: "Brother, does every family here really grow jujube trees?"

Ma Guoli smiled and nodded in response: "Yes, we didn't have large jujube orchards outside in the past. Each family planted them in their own home."

After a pause, Ma Guoli introduced: "Later, a very smart leader came here. Seeing that every family in our village planted jujube trees and that the jujubes here were particularly good, he proposed to plant jujube trees in the fields.

Then we started to plant jujube trees in the fields, and later the leader helped us to contact outsiders to collect jujubes from various villages here and sell them outside. "

Hearing Ma Guoli say this, Ding Yuan couldn't help but sigh: "That leader is really smart."

Ma Guoli immediately agreed: "Yes, that leader is very good. He helped us to become rich by growing dates."

Ma Guoli then proudly introduced: "Don't think that our Zhanhua jujubes are winter jujubes, which are not as good as the golden silk jujubes in Wudi, but our factory was built earlier, so the jujubes harvested in Wudi were sent to us for processing at the beginning."

Seeing Ma Guoli's proud expression, Feng Zhengming and the others smiled at each other.

When looking at Ma Guoli again at this time, I can still feel the simplicity of the villagers.

Soon after entering the village, many villagers greeted Ma Guoli.

When they saw him leading Feng Zhengming and four others, someone in the village asked, "Guoli, is this the chef you found?"

Some villagers also felt that Feng Zhengming and the other three looked unfamiliar and raised some questions.

"He doesn't look like a chef from the city? Where did you find this, Guoli?"

Ma Guoli did not hide it from the villagers.

"I went to the city. The chefs in the restaurants and hotels there were all busy and had no time to come to the village. The four of them came from Quancheng and passed by us. They said they were also chefs, so I asked them to come back with me to try the dishes."

Hearing Ma Guoli say this, the whole village's attention was immediately attracted.

Wait until Feng Zhengming and the other three followed Ma Guoli to his eldest brother's house.

The news that "Ma Guoli brought back four chefs from Quancheng" has spread in the village.

The news reached everyone in the village, young and old, men, women and children.

Everyone immediately went to Brother Ma Guoli's house to watch the fun. (End of this chapter)