A leisurely city for solo travelers

Chapter 32 The Story of the Cultural Cook

Fang Xian is not interested in most things in this world, except food.At this time, he was full of curiosity, wondering if the old man had rendered Suzhou cuisine.

The two walked into the inn, found a table and sat down.

Xiao Er was dressed very standard, took off the towel on his shoulders, and wiped the table deftly.

"Guest officer, what do you two want?"

At this moment, Fang Xian was at a loss. He had long been accustomed to ordering food by looking at the menu, and it was best to have some pictures on the menu. Now in an inn in Suzhou in the Southern Song Dynasty, he really didn't know what to order.

So Fang Xian looked at Zhao Linger, trying to ask for help.

However, Zhao Ling'er's face was completely confused. She didn't know much about this place than the real world. This girl stayed in Shuiyue Palace all day long. Except for those few vegetarian dishes, her food memory was blank.

No way, just ask if you don’t understand.

"Xiao Er, do you have any good dishes to recommend?"

The waiter asked patiently: "Would you like snacks or main course, snacks or tea, meat or vegetarian..."

"Forget it..." Fang Xian shook his head, took out dozens of coins and slapped them on the table, "Pick up some local specialties, serve your special dishes, and bring two jugs of good wine, thank you."

"Hello, please!"

Xiao Er was overjoyed, it was not every day that he was taken advantage of, so he put away his money and ran to the back kitchen.

"He seems to be speaking in a Beijing accent?" Fang Xian asked Zhao Ling'er, his face full of bewilderment.

Ling'er was very calm: "Didn't you notice that everyone here is a Beijing accent, and I am also a Beijing accent."

Xiaoer is quite kind, and basically brought all his specialty dishes.

Suzhou cuisine is one of the eight major cuisines in China. It belongs to the "Southern sweet" flavor. Fang Xian didn't like this flavor at first, thinking it was too greasy. In comparison, he could accept the spicy Sichuan cuisine.

However, the sweetness here is uniquely sweet and elegant. It is better to say that the natural seasoning is more powerful than the skill of the cook.

There are seven or eight dishes such as braised duck, lion head, squirrel mandarin fish, and green snail shrimp.And in this magical little inn, Fang Xiancai finally appreciates the profoundness of traditional Chinese cooking.

Naturally, good food should be paired with good wine. Fang Xian drank to his heart's content, but he didn't know what kind of wine he was drinking.

This wine seems to have a floral aroma, slightly sweet taste, not the kind of sweetness that is blended, but the kind that is similar to the honey juice in the flower buds, full of charm, comfortable in the mouth, even after drinking it in the stomach .

At the same time, this meal once again subverted Linger's view of diet.

"Delicious!!" Ling'er chewed the lion's head like an ordinary meatball, and the appearance of eating was extremely indecent. "This is also a meatball. Why is it so much tastier than the ones in the Mala Tang shop?"

"This is a lion's head, not a meatball."

"Isn't it just a bigger meatball?"

"Well, actually, I think so too." Fang Xian sips the wine lightly, feeling that the scene is quite comfortable at this moment, what the old man is playing is not a game, but life.What the old man said is really good. Although the sparrow is small, it has all the internal organs. It doesn't matter how big the city of Suzhou is. It is a good city if you restore the taste of it.

In half an hour, the two of them had cleaned up all the dishes on the table, and the two Gu wines had bottomed out.

"Xiao Er!" Fang Xian called Xiao Er over.

The waiter ran over happily, looking at the empty plate and sighing.
"Guest officer... how much food you two have..."

"Don't be afraid, we are full." Fang Xian rubbed his stomach and asked, "What is this wine called? It tastes very refreshing."

"Hehe, guest officer, you know the goods. This wine is the famous [Osmanthus osmanthus wine]! It is not a local wine. I don't know where it came from. There is a deceased poet in Song Dynasty——Li Qingzhao, do you know? .”

"Hey, I actually know! The sweet-scented osmanthus wine she invented?"

"No, no, she just wrote a poem about sweet-scented osmanthus wine, please listen carefully, sir..."

As the waiter said this, he transformed from a 2B young man into an artistic young man:

"Dark, light luteal body and soft nature, only fragrance remains in the distance."

"Why light blue and deep red, it is the best among flowers. Mei Ding is jealous, chrysanthemum should be ashamed, and the opening of the painting fence is the crown of Mid-Autumn Festival."

"Young poets are ruthless. Why didn't you see the end of the matter?"

Fang Xian was stunned for a while.

"Can't understand."

"Guest, you are kidding me. Children in Suzhou can recite this poem."

Fang Xian asked again: "This word refers to this wine? Why can't I feel it at all?"

"It's not about sweet-scented osmanthus wine, it's about sweet-scented osmanthus."

Fang Xian was stunned for a second, the people of the Song Dynasty were indeed educated, and even a waiter in a shop had such attainments, he was an embarrassment to the people of the 21st century Celestial Dynasty.

"By the way, I have one more request." Fang Xian got up and leaned into Xiaoer's ear, "Can you show me your cook?"

"This... the chef in charge is very busy..."

The old bridge is over, Fang Xian knows how to deal with it, stuff the broken money into Xiao Er's pocket, and everything will be settled.

Xiao Er put away the broken money, made sure that the boss wasn't looking at him, and then dragged Fang Xian to sneak towards the kitchen: "Guest officer, if you have anything to say, hurry up."

"Of course, I'm in a hurry." Fang Xian did not forget to tell Ling'er before leaving, "Sit down and don't move around."

When I came to the back kitchen, I saw a big white fat middle-aged man looking up at the ceiling at a 45° angle and smiling slightly.His face was featureless except for being fat, his head was bald, without a single hair, and even his eyebrows were very pale, which looked a little funny.

"Didn't you say he was busy?"

"He is very busy, because there is the word 'busy' in his name." Xiaoer smiled apologetically, then pointed to Chef Shamat and said, "This is the chef in charge——Fang Busy. Hurry up and talk, don't let the shopkeeper discovered."

"Why did my parents choose the name? I feel very uncomfortable..." Fang Xian muttered and walked up to Fang busy, shaking his hands, "Can we talk?"

Fang busy sighed——

"The peach blossoms are smiling in Taohuawu, and the cuckoos are pretty in the Humble Administrator's Garden."

"It seems that I am floating in a fairyland, and I dream of returning to the south of the Yangtze River in the middle of the night."

Listening to the ups and downs of the words, Fang Xian only felt that his ten years of learning were wasted.

"What's the matter, my lord." The chef continued to look up at the ceiling, looking like a tall man. As a fat white man, he didn't have any sense of joy belonging to a fat white man, maybe all educated people are like this.

Fang Xian had no choice but to blend into the feelings of a cultural chef: "I would like to ask Brother Fang two questions, and I hope you can enlighten me."

The chef smiled and waved his arms: "It's not a lesson, but it's okay."

"Where are you from?"

"..." The chef thought he was going to talk about some poetry and songs, but he didn't expect this brother to be so vulgar, but people still have to answer questions, "Fang was born in Sichuan, and traveled to Hunan, Guangdong and other places when he was young. I was exiled in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and I was lucky enough to be in charge of the Lin'an University a year ago, but I made a big mistake and was demoted from the University, so I had to commit myself to a small shop in Suzhou."

"Brother, speak slowly, my brain is slow."

So the chef said it again.

Fang Xian thought about it, and the co-author is a master, who is proficient in Sichuan cuisine, Hunan cuisine, Cantonese cuisine, etc., and also worked as an imperial chef. In modern times, any restaurant you enter will be the head chef.

"Brother Fang is low-key enough, so I'm going to ask the second question."

"Please."

"What did you do wrong in Ouchi?"

"...can you not talk about this?"

"I keep it a secret."

"Hey..." The chef was full of melancholy, "One time the emperor had a small-scale dinner with all the nobles and asked me to cook a fresh foreign dish. The fresher the better, the rarer the better, so I made a... Let’s not talk about this anymore.”

"It's all said and done, let's have a good time."

"Well, I made one for them—fried water cockroaches."

"Plop..." Fang Xian just felt that it might not be a good thing to let a cook know too much. After a short thought, he asked, "How big is the water cockroach?"

The cook gestured with an oval as big as a bowl.

"This size...who dares to eat it? They just don't want to eat it. Why did you demote you?"

"I don't know, my lord. I have improved the water cockroach. Chinese cuisine pays attention to the color, fragrance and taste. I process the fried cockroach, remove the head, tail and legs, and then use mustard juice to dye and season, and put it on the side. Turnip flowers or something."

"and then?"

“然后他们都吃了，连汤都舔了，说很好吃，就问我这是什么做的，我如实说了，就被揍了一顿轰出来了。”

"Hey...they don't understand, water cockroaches are very rich in protein." Fang Xian patted Fang Mang on the shoulder, "Brother Fang, I have already understood your situation, let's just leave here and see you later."

After speaking, Fang Xian strode away.

Fang busy was puzzled, he just felt that this person was sick, and came here to talk nonsense when he had nothing to do, he didn't know he was very busy.

(End of this chapter)