Lu Flavor, 1982: Starting as a Banquet Chef

In the late autumn of 1982, the spring breeze of the household responsibility system swept across both banks of the Yellow River.

The village's biggest headache, "Lin the Menace," suddenly changed his ways.

He stopped sneaking into widows' homes and raiding chicken coops.

At first, everyone thought the Lin family's boy had lost his mind.

But then Old Zhao's family, at the east end of the village, held a funeral banquet. The rich, savory aroma of Shandong dishes drifted on the autumn wind across half the village, making the half-grown boys next door, who were stuck eating corn buns, drool with envy. Only then did folks from all the surrounding villages realize what was going on.

That no-good only son of the Lin family had somehow mastered cooking so incredible it seemed divine!

Wood-fired stoves, wedding and funeral banquets, Four Happiness Meatballs, and fish cooked on roof tiles.

A master chef reborn into a new life, putting down roots in the black earth of western Shandong. Starting with one steaming banquet after another, he would slowly bring the fiery 1980s to a boil.