Food Classic

I always wonder, where are the fireworks in the world hidden? It's not a feast of delicacies in a skyscraper, it's not a cold number on a capital report, or it's not a premade soup dumpling that can be reheated in three minutes on the assembly line. It's hidden in the pork ribs and lotus root soup at the entrance of Pingkangli Lane in Wuhan, in the freshly baked steamed buns with cured meat in the old alleys of Xi'an, in the slow-cooked hand meat on the Altay grassland, in the bowl of multigrain porridge in the Dabie Mountain Village Love Canteen, on the dining tables of thousands of ordinary people, and in the crisp sound of the iron pot colliding with the frying spoon. This is my original intention in writing this story. In this era where everything is quick, pre-prepared dishes that can be heated in three minutes have taken the Chinese dining table by storm. It seems that it is getting harder and harder for us to eat a bite of freshly cooked home-cooked food, to feel the heat of the iron pot and the aroma of oil, and to remember what the aroma of food wafting from my mother's kitchen actually tastes like. But there are always people who are willing to slow down. I am willing to simmer for three hours for a pot of lotus root soup; I am willing to go head-to-head with capital giants for two years to maintain the bottom line of fresh speculation; I am willing to travel over mountains and ridges, drive cold chain trucks to the ridges of fields, and build stoves into ravines so that the elderly and children in the mountains can have a hot meal; I am willing to share the experience, supply chain, and technology I have developed through hard work for free with thousands of mom-and-pop shops across the country, and take them with me to maintain the roots of home-cooked food. Together, they cooked up this pot of human fireworks, which warmed the dining table and thousands of miles of China.