Tan Yunshan, heir to the Tan family’s imperial cuisine tradition, seeks out He Yuzhu, the cook at a steel mill cafeteria, in hopes of finding the Eight Treasures Cookbook, a family recipe book lost generations ago. The moment he tastes Silly Zhu’s cooking, he angrily throws down his chopsticks. “What a waste of good ingredients! With skills like yours, you don’t deserve to bear the surname He!” As it turns out, Silly Zhu’s father, He Daqing, was once an informal disciple of the Tan family. He learned a few scraps of their craft and then ran off. Though Tan Yunshan is two years younger than Silly Zhu, by seniority he is Silly Zhu’s grandmaster! Now the family’s culinary inheritance must be reclaimed, and its rules restored. Tan Yunshan decides to use his authority as grandmaster to completely reform Silly Zhu, from his cooking skills to his character. Silly Zhu’s cooking is subpar? No touching the pots for a day: you’re practicing knife skills only! Silly Zhu has poor judgment and gives good food to ungrateful people? No touching a ladle for three days! Qin Huairu wants a free meal? “Tan family dishes are made for people, not fed to animals! If you want to eat, pay for it!” Jia Zhangshi throws a tantrum? One ladle of boiling dishwater will shut you up! The freeloaders in the courtyard want to take advantage? They can ask the cleaver in my hand if it agrees! And as for Yushui, who has suffered so many wrongs, her grandmaster will personally cook medicinal dishes for her, with delicacies from land and sea so tempting the whole courtyard will drool!
