Live-Streaming My Street Stall: The Flavor Speaks for Itself

When Wu Chengzan, a chef at state banquets, wakes up, he discovers he has transmigrated to a parallel world with no good food.

There is no stir-frying, stewing, steaming, braising, sauteing, deep-frying, or simmering. People eat only to get their nutrients. The so-called “meals” consist of gray nutrient blocks and synthetic fast food churned out on assembly lines.

Salt exists only in chemistry textbooks, sugar in industrial supply depots, and chili peppers are sealed away in a waste-material container marked Experiment No. 0387.

This world has never known what “delicious” means.

That is, until Wu Chengzan sets up an iron wok in a ten-square-meter tin shack.

At four in the morning, at the entrance to an old street, he lights the world’s very first cooking fire.

A bowl of scallion oil noodles makes a sleepless programmer weep and say, “I think I remember what it was like to be a kid.”

A pot of red-braised pork makes a tycoon who has eaten his way around the world close his eyes and say, “I haven’t felt hungry in a long time.”

A plate of mapo tofu lets people who have never experienced “spice” taste what it means to be alive for the first time.

Five thousand years of culinary tradition and the memories of 1.4 billion people slowly awaken in his wok and on his stove.