In Lin'an City of the Song Dynasty, deep in an inconspicuous alley, fifty-year-old Granny Liu guarded three tables handed down from her ancestors.
Her husband died young and her son was frail. The family of seven depended on her calloused hands for food.
She understands better than anyone else - only the stock simmered over slow fire can match the cabbage picked in the morning; the bacon pickled in the twelfth lunar month cannot be opened until the Grain Rain in the coming year. Life was hard, but the fire in the stove was never extinguished.
Until that rainy night, a girl wearing strange short-sleeves opened the door and walked in. The screen of her mobile phone illuminated the dim room.
From then on, the restaurant was often visited by "guests" in fancy clothes. They brought snow-white refined salt, plump rice, and even thick sauce in jars.
Grandma Liu saw these rare things for the first time, but she refused to swallow them all - she compared modern soy sauce with her own, and kept the one with more flavor; she threw the MSG aside because "there is no need to use it when there is stock." Prepared dishes? She shook her head after hearing what the guest said: "You have a temper, and you can't be impatient."
As time goes by, there are several new seasonings on the stove, but the stew is still made over firewood, and the soup base is still simmered for two hours.
Her restaurant gradually became a small inn where two worlds meet.
——
Someone tasted "the taste of the past" here
Someone found the "way home" here
A bowl of hot soup, two lives of fireworks. Times are changing, but meals cooked with care will always warm people's hearts.
