Reborn in 1979: Starting in the Coal Mine Cafeteria

[Period setting, Food, Entrepreneurship, Everyday Life]

After wasting half his life, he is reborn in 1979.

Armed with a molecular gastronomy workbook, he returns to the coal-mine canteen where he got his first job.

Jiang Hai sets out on an unprecedented culinary path: Who still needs recipes to cook?

Forget the recipes. Think from the molecular level of the ingredients up.

Forget the techniques. Start with the fundamentals of cooking.

Sweet-and-sour meatballs bursting with savory sauce, knife-cut noodles with refreshing, meaty flavor.

Chewy oat-flour fish-shaped noodles, soft and silky millet cakes.

As one mind-blowing dish after another is served to diners, Jiang Hai just smiles. Who says Shanxi cuisine doesn't belong on the grand stage?

Shredded pork in fish-fragrant sauce packed with fish, and braised sea cucumber with scallions but no scallions.

Twice-cooked pork that doesn't need to be cooked twice, and dry-fried rice noodles made without turning on the stove.

When Jiang Hai is ready to take his cooking nationwide, chefs from every cuisine panic.

“Stay away from us!!!”