Food columnist Shen Yan traveled back in time to the Yuanfeng period of the Northern Song Dynasty in an accident.
When he woke up, he found that he had become a poor cook who had been kicked out of the imperial kitchen, with only a kitchen knife and half a can of coarse salt left on him. There were no mobile phones, no Internet, no gas stoves, and not even tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes—these ingredients he was familiar with had either not yet been introduced to China or did not exist at all in this era.
But he has a pen.
No, he doesn't have a pen. He has a wealth of food knowledge from thousands of years later, a pair of knife skills honed by Michelin chefs, and a sharp tongue honed in writing food reviews.
He originally wanted to live a low-key life and use his cooking skills to earn a living. But the prosperity of Bianjing City was like a boiling oil pan. He threw his shrimp into it and fried it with crackling sounds. From street vendors to Fanlou celebrity chefs, from Zhouqiao Night Market to royal banquets, his dishes make the entire Bianjing city ask the same question:
"What did that lunatic named Shen Yan put in the food?"
They didn't know that what he put there was not the mysterious oriental spice, but the future.
But he soon discovered that in this era, a dish can make you famous all over the world, or it can also make you famous. When his dishes began to touch the boundaries of power, and when his "innovation" was interpreted as "transgression," Shen Yan realized that his biggest enemy was not his envious colleagues, but history itself.
He cannot change history. But he can leave a taste.
This is a story about time travel, food and dignity. A person goes back a thousand years ago and carves his name in the gaps in history with one dish after another.
