Chapter 148: Family Craftsmanship

"Oh! That's a great idea! I'll treat you to drinks, and you'll treat me to food—we're even now, aren't we? If you say it's not worth your while to cook for me, I won't say another word, and I'll take my things right away!" Old Er was also quite a foodie. As soon as he heard Hong Tao say that the old man was a fantastic cook, he knew it couldn't be false. After all, he had taken Hong Tao to quite a few old establishments before and found that Hong Tao was even more particular about food than he was.

"Well then, I'd better not be ungrateful. Since it's almost time for dinner anyway, I'll take charge of the kitchen today! But we'll have to wait for my grandson Da Jiang to get back. There's nothing much left in the house to eat, so I'll send him out to pick up a few things." Da Jiang's grandfather had no choice left. To refuse any further would be an insult to their sincerity.

"Ha, no need to go to all that trouble! I've got a kitchen over on my side, fully stocked with everything, even imported canned goods. You should just come over to my place; it's spacious, and you'll have plenty of room to work your magic. Let's go, let's go." Old Er didn't want to put Da Jiang's family to any expense. In this day and age, good food was strictly rationed, but there was no need to worry about rations with Hong Tao around—he could always manage to buy hard-to-find supplies from the Friendship Store.

"Alright then, let me grab a few things. I have to bring along the tools that I'm used to using." As he spoke, Da Jiang's grandfather walked over to the corner of the room and pulled out a wooden box with a shoulder strap, roughly the size of a computer monitor. Judging by the wood, it had been used for many years; although unpainted, it shone with a deep, glossy patina.

"Old brother! You wouldn't happen to be a master chef from the old gentry banqueting tradition, would you?!" Seeing Da Jiang's grandfather pull out that wooden box, Old Er suddenly became excited.

"Oh! I almost forgot that Er Ye is a man of the world. It's rare for you to recognize this set of tools. I haven't properly played with them in many years; I'm almost out of practice. Sigh... I've let down my master!" Da Jiang's grandfather patted the box, his mood sinking.

"Don't say that. Today's my lucky day! To think I have a true grandmaster living right across from me. I had the privilege of tasting such cooking once when my older brother got married, and I've never tasted it since. Thank you for your trouble today." Solemnly and respectfully, Old Er made a formal bow to Da Jiang's grandfather, then personally lifted the door curtain, waiting for the old man to step out.

From the moment Da Jiang's grandfather stepped into the kitchen in the back courtyard of Hong Tao's place, Old Er stationed Lu Yunpeng at the entrance, strictly forbidding anyone else from entering. If the elderly master needed anything, he would simply call out to Lu Yunpeng.

"Er Ye, is it really necessary to go to such lengths? Could it possibly be some sort of legendary culinary technique?" Hong Tao had been too embarrassed to ask in front of Da Jiang's grandfather, but once they returned to the curio shop and told Da Jiang to go flip through a stack of comic books, he finally had the leisure to ask for details.

"Legendary technique might be stretching it, but you're definitely in for a treat. You're too young to understand this kind of thing, so just wait and eat something amazing later. Do you need to go empty out your stomach at the outhouse first to make some room?" Old Er had a terrible habit—he loved to hold back information and keep people in suspense.

"Will you hurry up and tell me? Otherwise, when the dishes come out later, I'll go through every single one of them with my chopsticks and ruin them all so nobody gets to eat!" Hong Tao was completely shameless these days. Being young had its perks; he could throw tantrums and ignore reason.

"Back in the old days, there was a special breed of chefs who went exclusively to wealthy households to cook. Whenever a family hosted a grand banquet or celebrated a birthday, they would invite these chefs to cook right in their own homes. These chefs weren't necessarily famous, but each had their own unique secret skills passed down strictly from generation to generation. They didn't belong to any specific regional cuisine; they just made things taste as incredible as possible. In private, people simply called them gentry banqueting chefs." Old Er was genuinely afraid that Hong Tao would act out, so he answered whatever was asked.

"Didn't people back then just order food from large restaurants, have it delivered in food boxes, or invite a restaurant chef to cook at home?" Hong Tao remained skeptical about the kind of chefs Old Er was describing.

"The chefs at big restaurants only excel at a handful of dishes. You can eat those anytime just by going to the restaurant! Who cares about your casual meal? That doesn't show off your status. That's why you had to hire these gentry banqueting chefs—food you could never normally eat. Even if they worked as chefs in a restaurant, they wouldn't prepare these dishes there; that was the rule. And even if they did cook them, the master would bring along just one or two young apprentices, lock the door, and prepare everything in secret. They would never let outsiders watch, and they would only cook for the primary host table no matter how many other tables there were! Impressive, right?" Old Er described it as if it were something miraculous.

"And you figured all that out just from a wooden box?" Hong Tao still had his doubts.

"Hehehe... That's what you call experience! I ate food cooked like that at home back in the day! I've long since forgotten what the specific dishes were, but the gentry banqueting master carried that exact same wooden box and brought along an apprentice." Old Er smugly flaunted his past glory.

"My grandfather's apprentice is my dad. Whenever my dad didn't cook well, my grandfather made him kneel on the floor and recite recipes from memory!" Da Jiang chimed in. It seemed he had witnessed firsthand how his grandfather taught his father the craft.

"That makes sense. These skills are all passed down generation by generation. With all the turmoil over the past few years, I bet most of it has been lost. The old man's craft was practically wasted. In this day and age, who's going to hire someone to cook gentry banqueting meals? Who can afford it? Who would dare eat it?" Old Er largely agreed with Da Jiang's words.

"Why not have the old man open a restaurant then? As long as the food is good, it doesn't matter if it's expensive—certainly, some people will pay for it. If Chinese people wouldn't dare eat it, wouldn't foreigners?" Hearing this, Hong Tao thought of the private kitchen businesses that would become immensely popular in future generations. Famous private restaurants weren't even a matter of money; just having money didn't guarantee you a table. They only served a limited number of tables a day, and if you wanted to eat there, you had to wait in line!

"Unlikely. As far as I know, their ancestors all had strict rules. Opening a restaurant is fine, but they aren't allowed to make their signature gentry banqueting dishes on a regular basis. People pay for the novelty and exclusivity. If they cooked them every day for anyone to casually order, wouldn't the entire trade collapse?" Old Er didn't quite agree with Hong Tao's perspective.

"Ha! You're living in the past! What year do you think it is now? Didn't you just say yourself that nobody eats gentry banqueting meals anymore, and certainly no one is going to invite an old master into their home to cook them? If he doesn't showcase the craft, it'll just die out completely! If it's as good as you say, how tragic would it be for it to be lost?" Hong Tao felt this was another golden opportunity to make money lying down, and he didn't want to let it go easily.

"You have a point, but our generation isn't like you young people! Actually, nobody is like you—you're a born capitalist through and through. If you had been born fifty years earlier, you definitely would have made a name for yourself on the Shanghai Bund, humph!" Old Er drifted off topic again; he was filled with a mix of envy, jealousy, and frustration at how Hong Tao always managed to come up with such bizarre money-making schemes.

"Fine, then when we're eating later, I'll bring it up, and you have to help me sway him. Let's try to get the old man to agree; doing this counts as accumulating good karma, doesn't it?" Hong Tao prepared to drag Old Er along to help persuade Da Jiang's grandfather.

"Right, so you're plotting against him again, huh? Are you going to buy in as a partner? Or are you going to use that loan shark scheme of yours and take a cut of his profits? Let me tell you, your idea is too vicious. You lend someone 200 yuan, and you make them split their profits with you for years. Doing that kind of thing too much shortens your lifespan!" Although Old Er didn't know Hong Tao's specific plan, he knew Hong Tao never did anything without profit, and he strongly disapproved of the loan model Hong Tao practiced at the progressive store. In his view, making money that way wasn't quite honorable.

"Hey! Er Ye, you can't look at it that way. 200 yuan today and 200 yuan five years from now are completely different concepts. Do you understand inflation? Besides, I have no relation to them—why should I lend them money just so they can get rich? Look at them now; they've barely been working for a year, right? Aren't they all like liberated serfs singing songs of triumph now? You couldn't chase them away even if you tried! I'm not doing something wicked; I'm accumulating good karma! Without me, wouldn't they still be wandering the streets blindly all day long? Don't lump me in with loan sharks; that's not the same thing at all, and there's no use explaining it to you!"

Hong Tao had argued with Old Er about this issue countless times. Despite coming from a wealthy playboy background, the old man actually had a kind heart and stubbornly held onto his bottom line of moral principles. He believed eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling weren't crimes, but loan sharking was downright wicked—and he stubbornly insisted that what Hong Tao was doing amounted to loan sharking.

"Ha, I can't argue with you. Accumulating good karma, fine, let's call it that. Anyway, I'm not going to accumulate this kind of good karma with you; you can play your games by yourself!" Old Er really couldn't out-argue Hong Tao, so he simply gave up. He picked up his teapot, leaned back against the daybed, and began humming to himself while shaking his head in a thoroughly exasperated manner.

Despite being on his own, Da Jiang's grandfather was remarkably nimble. In just two hours, he whipped up six dishes—four hot and two cold. When the dishes were served, Hong Tao didn't recognize a single one. However, he caught the distinct aroma of pig's head meat, yet searched for a long time without finding any pig's head meat in sight.

"Stop staring, come on, use your chopsticks! Da Jiang, stop looking, time to eat!" The old man seemed to be in high spirits. Although he was drenched in sweat from cooking, he smiled happily and spoke in a booming voice.

"Don't rush, don't rush! I've got good wine right here..." Hong Tao pulled a yellow ceramic jar of Maotai liquor from the cabinet, broke the seal, and filled a cup for each of the two old men. Hong Tao had never seen this kind of ceramic-jar Maotai in his past life; judging by the production dates stamped on them, they were from 1970. Whenever he came across them, he would buy a couple of bottles and stash them away inside the old furniture in the curio shop, rarely letting anyone touch them. He had already accumulated over a dozen bottles.

"Old brother, I'm riding on your coattails today. Normally he won't let me touch this wine; he always puts me off with Erguotou. Come on, bottoms up!" Old Er's eyes practically vanished into smiles when he saw the Maotai. His pursuit of food and drink was boundless—he was an unrepentant foodie.

"Grandpa Zhang, is this pork head meat braised inside Chinese cabbage leaves?" Hong Tao still didn't dare touch the strong liquor, so he buried his head in studying what each dish was actually made of.