Chapter 459: Chapter 457: The Wu Minqi Chapter

“…I’ve rarely seen a Sichuan chef who uses ingredients as boldly as Miss Wu Minqi. Although she appears aloof and is reticent during interviews, her use of ingredients is surprisingly daring and impassioned,”

“The Mao Blood Curd I had at the dinner table the day before had already shocked me, with large chunks of duck blood, tripe, ham sausage, and bean sprouts almost entirely enveloped in chili oil, dried chilies, and Szechuan peppercorns. Each ingredient was soaked in a deep red, each bite tingling my taste buds, causing my mouth to continuously salivate as if taking a deep breath could draw the spicy flavor down my throat and into my stomach.”

“At first, I thought this young female chef might have been heavy-handed with the ingredients due to nerves, but a visit to the kitchen a few days later dispelled that notion—far from getting heavy-handed because she was nervous, she actually went lighter on ingredients due to her nervousness.”

Reading aloud is different from reading to oneself; one can skim when reading silently, but reading aloud makes even a short article seem very long because you have to articulate every word. Jiang Feng felt his mouth was about to dry out; he had barely managed to get through half of the article.

With only one person ahead of him, Jiang Feng caught his breath and told Mrs. Jiang that he wanted two eggs in his pancake and fruit, then prepared to continue reading.

Reading this kind of article on an empty stomach was strangely hunger-inducing.

It seemed he’d have to speed up for the second half; reading this kind of article while smelling the pancake and fruit was simply torture.

Torture!

“Grandma, remember to ask for more spicy sauce on my pancake and fruit,” Jiang Feng added.

“Got it. Boss, three pancake and fruit, one with everything, one with two eggs, and one plain with nothing added, but put some spice on the two-egg one,” Mrs. Jiang said energetically to the owner while taking out her coin purse to pay.

Seeing Jiang Feng stop and watch her pay without continuing to read the magazine, Mrs. Jiang felt quite displeased.

He was just getting to the exciting part with a twist coming up; why had he stopped reading?

“Feng, keep reading. When you’re done, Grandma will buy you a mung bean drink,” Mrs. Jiang said.

Jiang Feng: …

“Grandma, I want a soy milk.”

“Alright, soy milk it is, but finish reading the article first,” Mrs. Jiang said, her expression and tone as if she were indulging a three-year-old grandson, filled with perfunctory patience, even drawing out the word ‘good’.”

“The Mapo Tofu is the ultimate feast of spiciness and numbness in perfect harmony. Red broth, white tofu; just one touch of the tongue to that spicy and numbing sensation sends it from the tip of the tongue to the root. The dominant spicy and numbing flavor lingers in the mouth for a long time. The advantages of this way of cooking are clear: bold with ingredients, strong in flavor, and the dishes quickly captivate the diner’s palate, leaving them with an unforgettable and profound impression. Whether they are diners who prefer strong flavors or those who favor lighter tastes, this unique, bold, and even capricious cooking style is a brand new experience and challenge for every diner.”

“The corresponding flaws are quite obvious. Nowadays, many novelty-seeking restaurants intentionally make extremely spicy dishes to catch people’s attention, even going so far as to ignore the original flavor of the dish for the sake of spiciness alone. I personally find this inversion of priorities reprehensible; I don’t even consider those dishes to be food, they’re merely a heap of chili peppers tossed together. Such extreme practices turn what should be an embellishment or a supporting element that propels the enjoyment of a dish’s spiciness into pure agony.”

“This Mapo Tofu falls into the same trap—the line between pain and pleasure in the pursuit of ultimate taste is often very thin. Speaking for myself, I deem it a failure. The pain from the spiciness overwhelmed any unique pleasure from the dish’s flavor upon first taste. Though a hint of the underlying aftertaste, hidden behind the chili and Sichuan peppercorn, begins to emerge as the initial fiery sensation fades, these subtle notes alone are not enough to pass this dish.”

“While the dish fails to meet standards, I greatly admire Miss Wu Minqi’s unique cooking style. Bold and distinctive, marked with a vivid personal touch, it’s rare nowadays to see young chefs capable of branding their dishes with such a distinct signature.”

“The balance and adjustment between the spiciness and the dish’s inherent flavors, and that fine line between distinctiveness and pain, I believe that will be Miss Wu Minqi’s greatest challenge in the days to come. And she will undoubtedly become a very talented and unique Sichuan cuisine chef, perhaps even forging her own novel path. I hope this old man lives to see that day.”

Jiang Feng finished reading.

He felt his pancake was getting a bit cold.

The interview with Wu Minqi was actually quite short, occupying very few pages. Perhaps because Wu Minqi didn’t tell Xu Cheng anything that would allow him to pad out his article, Xu Cheng focused mainly on describing Wu Minqi’s cooking style and what he perceived as the flaws in her dishes.

The article began with several hundred words of senseless filler, which Jiang Feng believed was probably the limit of Xu Cheng’s ability to pad words.

As the article wasn’t long, Wu Minqi’s photos were very large, especially the full-body shot. Jiang Feng’s photo only took up about a quarter of a page, while Wu Minqi’s occupied half the page with plenty of white space to spare, and to fill out the layout, Xu Cheng even included two photos of Wu Minqi. One could say he was quite unscrupulous.

No wonder Mrs. Jiang wanted to hear Wu Minqi’s interview; with two portraits and two dish photos, she had more pictures than others.

For Mrs. Jiang, who only looked at the pictures, this interview was certainly more appealing than others.

Setting these things aside, Xu Cheng’s article was actually full of substance, going straight to the point in identifying Wu Minqi’s current biggest issue.

Her dishes were too one-dimensional.

This was both good and bad. A chef might specialize in one cuisine, but learning a bit of others wouldn’t hurt. All chefs dream of embodying the strengths of various styles, but only Jiang Chengde has truly accomplished this.

Wu Minqi’s focus on one cuisine is even more extreme than that of other chefs. Sichuan cuisine is not limited to spicy dishes, but Wu Minqi excels only in spicy ones.

When she cooks other types of dishes, she seems somewhat hesitant; only when making spicy dishes does she truly let loose, even to the point of being recklessly unbridled.

As Xu Cheng concluded in his article, there is only a fine line between distinctiveness and pain. At present, the spicy dishes that Wu Minqi freely crafts are clearly more about pain than distinctiveness.

That’s why she left her own restaurant and didn’t stick around to learn from her grandpa, but instead traveled all the way to Taifeng Building. Part of the reason was for love, but it wasn’t just for love; she needed to learn some skills beyond just spicy Sichuan cuisine, needing skilled and experienced senior chefs to show her the way.

Although it didn’t seem to be fruitful so far, she indeed had been trying hard.

Jiang Feng could only hope that his Minqi would gain some insights after reading Xu Cheng’s article.

The layout of “Taste” was quite interesting this issue; it was organized by the length of the articles, with the shorter ones in the front. Jiang Feng flipped through it briefly while eating his pancake roll, and the first half could nearly be called a Taifeng Building special, only interrupted by a piece written by Gu Li.

The sequence was Wu Minqi, Zhang Guanghang, Gu Li, Jiang Feng, and an interview with Taifeng Building that seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Yes, Xu Cheng had written an article about Taifeng Building.

Jiang Feng scanned it briefly; it seemed to be about the signature dishes of the two Sirs, Jiang Weiming and Jiang Weiguo, and it probably threw in a bit of history and origin of Taifeng Building. It was just unknown when Xu Cheng had interviewed the two Sirs.

It was quite a long piece, almost rivaling Jiang Feng’s own interview. Mind you, Xu Cheng had turned Jiang Feng’s interview into a short story, with most of it dedicated to the deeply touching story between Li Mingyi and Jiang Huiqin.

Jiang Feng squatted by the roadside, flipping through “Taste” while munching on his pancake roll, and Wu Minqi was sitting at the stall, nibbling on a sugar-sprinkled sponge cake. Her bowl of soybean juice was hardly touched, her demeanor indicating she was contemplating whether to take another couple of sips.

When Jiang Feng had eaten half of his pancake roll, Wu Minqi finally stood up, took a few dozen seconds to locate him squatting by the roadside engrossed in the magazine while eating his pancake roll.

And Mrs. Jiang sitting beside Jiang Feng, nibbling on her pancake roll and looking at the pictures in the magazine.

Wu Minqi had been so focused on her battle with the soybean juice that she hadn’t noticed Jiang Feng had been reading the magazine to Mrs. Jiang for over ten minutes already.

“Mrs. Jiang,” Wu Minqi approached and greeted Mrs. Jiang.

“Oh Qiqi, I was wondering why Feng came over to buy a pancake roll by himself and only bought one. If you wanted one, you could have asked Feng to get it for you, instead of coming later by yourself; look, the new line has gotten so long already.” Mrs. Jiang had been intently listening to Jiang Feng read from the magazine and hadn’t noticed that Wu Minqi was right next door drinking soybean juice.

“Mrs. Jiang, I was just at the stall next door; I’ve already finished eating,” Wu Minqi said.

“Oh, you’ve finished? Well, that’s good then,” Mrs. Jiang replied with a smile, then turned to Jiang Feng, “Feng, eat up quickly. You’re making Qiqi wait for you. How can a boy eat so slowly? You’re nothing like your cousins. But then, you’ve been like this since you were little, while your cousins would wolf down their food in no time, you would be trailing behind eating slowly. Sometimes, when the noodles were made by Sir Chengde in the morning, Dede would even steal some of yours, and you, bless your heart, couldn’t even protect a bowl of noodles.”

Jiang Feng: ???

Grandma, do you remember that the reason I didn’t get the pancake roll right away was that I was reading a magazine for someone?

And, isn’t it pretty normal I couldn’t protect my noodles when De was trying to snatch them?

Jiang Feng sped up his pancake roll eating.

Since Jiang Feng was not talking, Mrs. Jiang started to praise Wu Minqi: “Qiqi, I saw in this magazine where they praised your article, right in this issue here. I just specially went to the newsstand to buy it, and Feng read it to me.”

“It said your cooking is really tasty, your spicy dishes have a unique flair, unlike ordinary chefs.” Mrs. Jiang, while listening, had conveniently glossed over the parts where Xu Cheng criticized Wu Minqi’s cooking.

“All right, I won’t keep you two, I have to go deliver a pancake roll to Grandma Chen. It’s farther from their place, and it’s more convenient for me to buy it here and take it over. Plus, I can have her read the rest of the articles to me.”

“I’m telling you, those literacy classes when I was young were no good, they just messed around, let us learn to count to three and write out our names, then let us all loose. If they’d taught us to read properly back then, how could I possibly be unable to understand magazines now?”

Jiang Feng: …

If he recalled correctly, Comrade Zhao Lanhua’s version was that the literacy classes grabbed all the kids, no matter their age, and locked them in a room to learn to write. The minimum requirement was to learn to count to three and write their names before they were released, and all the kids cried and screamed, not wanting to go.

Back then, Comrade Zhao Lanhua painted the literacy classes as a harsh prison, almost telling Jiang Feng that if you couldn’t learn to write, you’d get saltwater, whips, and the tiger bench treatment.

And now she was blaming the literacy classes for releasing her too early.

Oh, Grandma.

“You see, don’t you, Feng? Your grandma was really bright back then; I learned to count to three and write my name so quickly, I was the first to master it,” Mrs. Jiang turned back to Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng’s mouth was stuffed with pancake roll, making it impossible to speak, so he just nodded furiously to affirm his grandmother’s fictitious lies.

“Sigh, your grandma here, if it weren’t for our family being so poor and having too many girls when I was young, and if I could have gone to school, maybe I would have gone to college. But I’m off to see Grandma Chen now.” Mrs. Jiang had finished her bluff and was ready to bolt.

Jiang Feng swallowed the last bite of his pancake roll.

And choked on it.