THE GAME OF LIFE

Chapter 662: Chapter 660: Swallow-Wing Feast

Because he was planning to mooch dinner at Yonghe House, Jiang Feng decided to go all out and mooch lunch there as well. Compared to the Taifeng Building’s staff meal, which rivaled an all-you-can-eat buffet under a hundred yuan, the staff meal at Yonghe House was rather plain and typical, with the only difference from a student cafeteria being the absence of a lunch lady.

It included meat and vegetables, was mediocre in skill, featured a greater abundance of vegetables than meat, and was quite oily.

At Taifeng Building, all furnace chefs took turns preparing the staff meal, whereas at Yonghe House, it was always made by the chef with the lowest seniority, such as the young man who often mistakenly called Jiang Feng “Grand Master Uncle” and did not deserve a name.

The staff meal today had been prepared by him, consisting of just five dishes, all of which Jiang Feng tasted. After tasting, Jiang Feng deeply realized why the young man, with the lowest seniority, was generally not allowed to touch the stove without a reason—his cooking skills were genuinely lacking.

“Teacher… Jiang Feng, when will I be able to become a real furnace chef like you?” the lowest-ranked young man asked, holding a plate.

“Just sit down first; you’re almost spilling those green beans on me,” Jiang Feng pointed to the seat opposite him and gestured for the lower-ranked young man to sit down.

Because of the inferior quality of the staff meal, people like Peng Changping and Lu Sheng, who were boss-level, would usually eat outside, and some financially better-off chefs would eat at small eateries nearby. Only the young lads struggling to make ends meet and the poor employees trying to economize to feed their families would eat in the restaurant.

“How many years have you been learning?” Jiang Feng asked.

Although he had spent more time in Yonghe House than Taifeng Building recently, he primarily focused on making broth and rarely interacted with others. He only had a general idea of the surnames and seniority ranking of the people in the back kitchen and nothing else.

“Almost four years now,” the young man replied.

“Then you’ve still got some time to go,” Jiang Feng said. “I started learning to cook with my grandfather when I was not even five years old and didn’t touch a pot until middle school, so it’s only been a few years for you.”

The apprenticeship model at Yonghe House continued to follow the most traditional pattern where, unless exceptionally talented, an apprentice would need to focus solely on basic skills for at least ten years. Even as times changed and chefs shifted from being illiterate to completing mandatory nine-year educations, learning literacy, Newton’s second law, and chemical equations, the apprenticeship method at Yonghe House remained unchanged.

This also led to Yonghe House barely taking in any apprentices over the years, which was even worse than Taste House to the south—the Taste House had at least relaxed its requirements a bit, while Yonghe House hadn’t eased them at all.

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“Ah,” the young man sighed, lamenting his dim prospects of becoming a real chef any time soon.

Jiang Feng also sighed, expressing his disappointment with today’s unsatisfactory lunch.

The young man, being the lowest ranked in Yonghe House and having wealthier senior brothers and sisters who were at an age to enjoy a good meal, rarely ate at the restaurant except at the end of the month. It was difficult for him to fit in for conversations with his older senior uncles and aunts due to the age gap. Since he usually had no one to eat with, he took the opportunity to spill all the things he couldn’t say during meals when he finally caught Jiang Feng, who was around the same age and at least somewhat familiar.

Jiang Feng sat opposite him, eating while listening to him talk. He wasn’t sure when it happened, but Jiang Feng found that he was particularly popular in this regard, with many people he didn’t consider very close to him willing to chatter away about things that were not very important. It was the same when he went to the teahouse with Zheng Siyuan, who also talked a lot just to him.

Perhaps it was an affinity that came from being a great boss.

After hearing a lot of rambling from the other person, Jiang Feng suddenly realized he also had something he wanted to ask him. He inquired, “By the way, in all your years at Yonghe House, have you ever seen the other chefs prepare the Tan Family Cuisine banquet?”

The Tan Family Cuisine banquet at Yonghe House has always been shrouded in mystery. Everyone knew Yonghe House offered such a service, but very few had ever witnessed it. Rumor had it that Yonghe House only held it a few times a year, but the majority didn’t even know when those few times were or for whom they were held, since regular diners never saw the Tan Family Cuisine menu at Yonghe House.

Ever since he became acquainted with Mr. Lu, Jiang Feng had been very curious about why the Tan Family Cuisine banquet was so secretive. It wasn’t as though the chefs had run off and couldn’t cook; it made no sense to hide away perfectly good dishes.

Unfortunately, Jiang Feng had never found the chance to ask.

“I’ve seen it; our restaurant did two tables last year. It was a family banquet for the 90th birthday celebration of an old regular customer, an away banquet, and I even went along to help with the senior uncles and grand uncles!” the young man exclaimed proudly.

“You went too?” Jiang Feng was surprised.

“Of course!” the young man was incredibly proud, “I washed all the dishes!”

Jiang Feng: …

I really don’t understand you Yonghe House chefs.

“What kind of dishes were there?” Jiang Feng asked curiously, then felt it might be improper, “If you can’t say, then forget I asked.”

“There is nothing I can’t say. Others might not be able to say, but since you are learning from Master Lu, you definitely can. I’d say Master Lu will surely take you as his disciple in the future. Maybe I’ll have to call you ‘Junior Grand Uncle.’ Even my master hasn’t learned cuisine from Master Lu,” the young man said. “Let me think, there weren’t many big dishes; mainly those dishes are just too troublesome, and with too many dishes, the senior uncles and grand uncles couldn’t cope.”

The young man fell into deep thought and after a long time, he stuttered out like a middle school student reciting a text, “I remember first they served tea and dried fruits, the tea was Mr. Lu’s tea, and the dried fruits were brought over by my master from the shop, I haven’t tried them so I don’t know if they’re any good.”

“Then they served a few appetizers, my senior brother said they were for pairing with alcohol, there were about six or seven dishes, served in small plates. I remember there was spiced fish, duck liver, drunken peanuts, sausage, sliced pork hock, and a few others I can’t recall clearly.”

Jiang Feng nodded, just the appetizers for pairing with alcohol were already quite a feast.

“There was also alcohol, also brought from the shop, my uncles said that alcohol is the most important part of the banquet, that it couldn’t be bought from outside and had to be their own brew.”

“I remember the first dish was braised shark fin in brown sauce, my master said that the order of other dishes could change but the first one must be shark fin, the second one was braised abalone, the third was steamed chicken with straw mushrooms, the fourth was silver fungus cooked with vegetables, the fifth I think was some kind of fish, the sixth was crisp duck with dried scallops, the seventh was a sweet soup, and at the end, they also served two stacks of pastries. Originally, the pastries should have been made by us, but due to lack of manpower, they were bought by the host themselves.”

“Quite a feast indeed,” Jiang Feng exclaimed, a banquet that gathered shark fin, abalone, and an assortment of chicken, duck, and fish can be said to be quite…

Wait, chicken, duck, fish, and shark fin were all there, what about sea cucumber and bird’s nest?

“Why is there no sea cucumber and bird’s nest?” Jiang Feng asked.

This question touched upon the young man’s area of ignorance. His biggest contribution to the entire banquet was washing vegetables, he really couldn’t answer that question.

The young man shook his head, looking perplexed.

To Jiang Feng’s surprise, just after he had asked about the Tan Family Cuisine banquet arrangement in the afternoon, he saw it.

After Peng Changping and Lu Sheng had gone out and eaten lunch, they brought back Xu Cheng. Not only did Mr. Xu come, but he also brought a bunch of ingredients, all of which were to be used for dinner.

The fact that these ingredients needed Xu Cheng’s personal escort was a clear sign of their rarity and value.

Of course, it might also be that Xu Cheng, just like Jiang Feng, simply wanted to find an excuse to squat in Yonghe House until dinner.

Jiang Feng went to take a look at the ingredients.

Chicken, duck, fish, various vegetables, sea cucumber, shark fin, abalone, bird’s nest, it was all there.

Jiang Feng: ?

Is Peng Changping a superhero? Or is he the legendary Captain America, a middle-aged chef who uses all of these ingredients to prepare a banquet might collapse from exhaustion, to say nothing of someone his age.

“Master Peng, are you sure we need so many ingredients for tonight’s dinner?” Jiang Feng asked, in disbelief.

“The Swallow-wing Feast consists of these ingredients,” Peng Changping said with a smile, “Six appetizers, nine main dishes, one sweet dish, four types of dried fruits, four types of fresh fruits, one cup of Tieguanyin tea per person, it cannot be altered.”

Lu Sheng and several of Master Peng’s apprentices quietly lowered their heads, their gazes drifting away.

“Can you manage it?” Jiang Feng asked, intuitively.

“Of course, I can manage,” Peng Changping said as he walked over to the ingredients and checked them, “Let’s deal with the chicken, duck, and fish first; the shark fin hasn’t soaked long enough, have the dried scallops and ham been prepared? This basin is lye water, right? How can you use lye water to soak bird’s nest; you should use warm water to retain the natural flavor, have you all forgotten this? How have you been preparing bird’s nest these past years? How is the chicken broth from this morning? Chen… never mind, you go deal with the duck, Jiang Feng, check on the chicken broth.”

Except for showing some displeasure about the lye water, Peng Changping was otherwise very gentle in his tone, methodically assigning tasks to everyone, ensuring that everyone had work and could work overtime.

The only Tan Family Cuisine Lineage chefs who didn’t get assigned tasks were just the young man who had lunch with Jiang Feng at noon and another two apprentices with the lowest seniority and poorest skills.

“Grandmaster, I’ll wash the vegetables!” Though the young man didn’t get assigned a task, he created one for himself, and after saying this, he ran off hugging the basin of vegetables that clearly had already been washed once.

Jiang Feng: …

Honestly, I really don’t understand you chefs of Yonghe House.

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