10 Chapter 10: Truly Delicious
Translator: Larbre Studio
Editor: Larbre Studio
The next morning, Jiang Feng, as usual, was cooking porridge for Chen Xiuxiu in the kitchen.
With the basic skills in porridge cooking, making a simple coix seed porridge became very easy for him.
The only ingredient was coix seeds, and there was no need to weigh them precisely. He could just grab a handful, and his intuition would tell him how much rice to use with the coix seeds. The once stingy Jiang Feng, who complained about the game, now continually muttered its praises.
So good!
As the porridge in the pot started to boil and thicken, Jiang Feng began stirring.
The door opened, but he didn’t pay much attention, guessing it was Mrs. Wang Xiulian coming back to fetch something.
“Cooking porridge?” A familiar, old, and serious voice came from behind him.
When Jiang Feng turned around, there stood Sir Jiang Weiguo right behind him.
“Grand… Grandpa!”
Jiang Weiguo snatched the large spoon from Jiang Feng’s hand, leaned in to inspect the pot and scolded, “What is this slop you’re cooking? Pig feed?”
Jiang Feng could only offer a dry laugh in response.
As Jiang Weiguo skillfully reduced the heat and steadily stirred the porridge, he scolded, “You can’t even control the fire properly. Look at this porridge; you’ve boiled it too thick! And you can’t stir properly. How on earth has Jiang Jiankang been teaching you?”
!!..
The old patriarch of the Jiang family was furious, and Jiang Feng could only stand obediently to the side and listen.
A while later, the porridge was ready.
[A bowl of decent-tasting coix seed porridge]
Sir Jiang Weiguo had only spent about fifteen minutes saving this pot of porridge and turned it into a decent bowl of porridge, leaving Jiang Feng to sigh in amazement as he blew on and sipped at the bowl he was holding.
The gap between cooks can truly be wider than the gap between humans and pigs.
Just thinking about the pigs raised by Sir Jiang Weiguo, who got to eat the food he personally cooked every day, made Jiang Feng incredibly envious.
Jiang Feng took two bowls of porridge and went next door.
“Two bowls?” Chen Xiuxiu, who had decided this would be her last day drinking porridge, looked surprised at the two bowls in front of her.
“My grandpa came over, and he helped control the fire for this porridge. It’s for Mr. Chen to try as well. By the way, is Mr. Chen here?” Jiang Feng asked.
“My dad is sleeping.” Chen Xiuxiu had never had the fortune to taste the dishes cooked by Jiang Weiguo, who had been living in the countryside for over a decade.
Jiang Feng didn’t linger, as he needed to figure out why Sir had suddenly shown up without any notice.
Could something have happened in the countryside?
“Grandpa, why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I could have gone to the station to pick you up!” Jiang Feng returned to find Sir inspecting the kitchen.
“I’m perfectly healthy; why would I need picking up.” Jiang Weiguo finished inspecting the kitchen utensils and started checking the ingredients in the fridge. “This pork is hormone-fed, throw it away.”
Jiang Feng quickly complied with Sir’s instructions and threw away the pork.
“I also looked at the porridge you just made. It’s improved a lot from the cooking even a pig wouldn’t touch. You must be in love,” Sir Jiang Weiguo said.
Jiang Feng: ???
“When your eldest uncle was young, he was just like that. Learning to cook from me was like asking for his life, but once he started dating your aunt, he was digging into cooking every day to please her.”
Jiang Feng sensed that Sir was recounting the past probably to prelude what he was about to say next.
“Last night, I dreamt of your great-grandfather. He scolded me in the dream for breaking the lineage of Jiang Family Dishes and also berated me for having five unworthy descendants, not one of whom can carry on the legacy of Jiang Family Dishes.” Jiang Weiguo sighed, “Your father’s cooking will just be so-so this lifetime, better than some but not as good as others. None of your cousins have a talent for cooking, and your two cousin sisters look strong, but can’t even toss a spoon properly.”
“I thought about it all night, and among the younger generation, only you have a bit of talent,” Jiang Weiguo said, looking at Jiang Feng.
Jiang Feng: !!!
Jiang Feng knew what Sir was implying.
As children of the Jiang family, they were sent to Sir’s place to learn cooking every holiday. Sir thought Jiang Feng was too skinny and weak, so he had him just hang on a punching bag for over a year.
Training in the harsh heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter was nothing.
Just practicing knifework alone took six years, and all the potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, tofu, etc., that he cut were fed to the pigs by Sir.
Jiang Feng started working with the wok only in seventh grade.
He touched the wok for just one year—not even half-skilled—before he started preparing for the high school entrance exams in eighth grade.
Afterward, he boarded at high school, which kept him busy with studies. Four years went by without any pursuit of cooking, and he never returned to Sir’s place to learn.
Jiang Feng’s three elder cousins also walked this path, but none trained in cooking as long as he did—they didn’t even complete their knifework before Sir sent them back.
The six years spent learning knifework, upon reflection, felt like a torrent of bitter tears.
Sometimes, he would dream of cutting cucumbers.
Indeed, what you fear is what comes.
“Isn’t your dad preparing to open a new store at your school? That broken Optoelectronics Information thing you’re studying obviously won’t get you a job, so you’ll just take over your dad’s store and carry on the glory of the Jiang Family Dishes,” Jiang Weiguo and Jiang Jiankang are truly like father and son, dreaming big dreams.
“Starting today, you’ll be learning cooking from me!”
“Huh?!”, Jiang Feng envisioned himself from a few years ago, slicing pork every day, “Grandpa, I still have to attend classes normally!”
“During winter and summer vacations! After you graduate from university, you train for a dozen more years. It’s said diligence can compensate for clumsiness, and I, your grandfather, am in great shape, so teaching you for another dozen years is no problem at all!” Jiang Weiguo was brimming with ambition.
Jiang Feng: …
Okay, grandpa, no problem, grandpa, everything you say is right, grandpa.
How does the saying go? Elders always like to press their unfulfilled dreams onto their children.
Let someone else, like my future kids, accomplish such a grand ideal of reviving the Jiang Family Dishes!
Kid, your dad believes in you!
The arrival of Sir Jiang Weiguo truly sent shockwaves through the entire Jiang Family.
Jiang Jiankang stopped worrying about his store; upon receiving Jiang Weiguo’s instructions, he went to the market to buy groceries. Even Uncle Jiang Jiandang and Aunt Li Mingli arrived upon hearing the news, and Jiang Feng’s second cousin, Jiang Shoucheng (Uncle Jiang’s child), too bought a high-speed train ticket to return.
At lunchtime, four stout and chubby men gathered at the kitchen door, salivating at the aroma.
“Brother, you’re really the lucky one!” sighed Jiang Jiandang.
“I didn’t expect Feng to have such good fortune either,” sighed Jiang Jiankang, “Just last night, I felt that the kid had some talent for cooking, and then our dad shows up.”
“Dad’s cooking skills have improved again,” recalled Jiandang, his mouth watering just from the smell, remembering the happy times when he could eat Sir’s cooking every day as a child. “This sweet and sour pork is much tastier than last year’s New Year’s.”
“Aren’t you coming in to help? Do you two rascals want to work me to death?” Jiang Weiguo, seeing his sons whose cooking couldn’t match up to his, couldn’t hide his frustration. “When your great-grandpa was around, even cabbages were stir-fried to taste like elixir!”
Jiang Jiankang and Jiang Jiandang quickly got into the kitchen, one cutting vegetables, the other washing, clogging the spacious kitchen quite thoroughly.
By noon, the table was brimming with eight colorful and aromatic dishes plus a soup.
Surrounded by five chubby men, Jiang Feng felt out of place with the Jiang Family.
That’s right.
It felt just like celebrating the New Year!
Four Joyful Meatballs, Nine Turns Intestine, sweet and sour pork, sour and spicy shredded potatoes, potted meat, crispy double kick, Deluxe Tofu, stir-fried water spinach and a West Lake beef soup — even a New Year’s banquet wasn’t as lavish!
Mrs. Wang Xiulian and Li Mingli, having married into the Jiang family for so many years, hadn’t seen such a grand feast before.
“Dinner time, what are you staring for?” Jiang Weiguo disliked seeing their unworldly expressions.
“Let’s eat, let’s eat!” everyone echoed in agreement.
“Oh right, Feng, go and call Xiuxiu and Mr. Chen to come eat with us,” remembered Jiang Jiankang suddenly, then turned to explain to Jiang Weiguo, “They are our old neighbors, you should remember Mr. Chen Duxiu, right?”
Jiang Weiguo nodded, “That kid used to come over to our house to scrounge for meals when he was little.”
Jiang Feng popped next door where, as it happened, Chen Duxiu was also at home.
“Mr. Chen, my grandpa has made a feast, and my dad sent me to invite you over,” Jiang Feng said.
“Uncle Jiang is here?” Chen Duxiu suddenly got excited, stepping quickly towards the door, just like an old lady rushing for discounted goods at the supermarket, “Xiuxiu, hurry to your Uncle Jiang’s place, or you’ll miss out on the food!”
Jiang Feng, seeing two freshly washed empty bowls on the table, looked questioningly at Chen Xiuxiu, “Didn’t you tell Mr. Chen that the porridge this morning was made by my grandpa?”
Chen Xiuxiu: …
She slightly turned her head away from Jiang Feng, “I forgot.”
Just as Chen Xiuxiu entered the door and hadn’t yet reached the table, she heard the old man say, “Feng, your girlfriend is a bit thin!”
“Look at your aunt Li Mingli, that’s the kind of blessed woman one should marry!”
Li Mingli lifted her head proudly.
In terms of body mass, Mrs. Wang Xiulian was still slightly behind Li Mingli.
“Yes, yes, Uncle Jiang is right,” Mr. Chen heartily agreed while he devoured the potted meat, “Xiuxiu, girls should be a bit chubby to look good. Come on, eat some meat.”
Two more place settings had been added to the table.
Chen Xiuxiu looked over the table filled with meat dishes and felt her saliva rapidly secreting.
So…
Delicious!