Little Bites at the Imperial College

Fine delicacies and sesame cakes are common fare in the homes of Luoyang; Grapes with fine wine and snowy milk foam, how do they compare with a nobleman’s royal banquet? The Imperial Academy’s little dining hall has a blackwood menu board listing the day’s dishes. Unfortunately, the food is so poor that the place is deserted, with hardly anyone stopping by. Shen Yanqing has fallen from being a marquis’s daughter to a servant at the academy. She’d planned to coast through life, eating and waiting for death, but then the emperor opens the doors of education to women, and the little kitchen is slated for a revamp as well. The culinary skills she’s kept hidden for over a decade can no longer be contained Sesame cakes are topped with roasted venison, chilled cheese turns into an almond snow mountain, and the fragrance of crab roe rises from the celery soup. The little dining hall is transformed, and students rush to the cafeteria every day to see the menu. Some get into fights over a bowl of golden fish salad, while others take notes as they eat and turn them into food journals. For a time, their writings become all the rage in Luoyang. At the start of the new year, the Imperial Academy welcomes a group of new students, each with a different personality and family background. Her former fiancé, her childhood sweetheart, Chang’an’s most talented young woman... They all gather beneath one roof, beginning a series of lively and entertaining academy tales filled with laughter, scolding, and spirited banter. Later, the Shen family’s case is overturned, and Shen Yanqing returns to the marquis’s estate. She finds the best storefront in the West Market and starts a restaurant. The students wail in dismay. What will they do for food from now on? Who could have guessed that Shen Yanqing would smile and say, “The boss is back to run the cafeteria!” *The finest taste in the world is the warmth of everyday life in a school. *Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish.