Cheng Yanqiu loses every recipe overnight, and his father, Cheng Huairen, burns their family’s culinary craft to ashes. Relying on memory, he recreates twelve endangered heritage dishes. Starting with the “Eight Ways to Make Drunken Crab,” he stirs up a culinary world that has lain dormant for thirty years. Su Manqing’s camera, Zhao Tieshan’s notes on heat control, and Lin Xiaoman’s secretly recorded videos all become hidden threads in the story. When the truth comes to light, the fire did not destroy the recipes. It burned away the entire family’s faith in passing down their heritage.
