The Mountain and Sea Chef: Raising a Child and Hunting in the Mountains, Starting in 1982

There's an old saying in the Greater Khingan Range: "Knock down roe deer with a stick, scoop up fish with a gourd, and pheasants fly right into the cooking pot."

In 1982, Zhou Tiezhu was thrown out with nothing but the clothes on his back. He moved with his daughter into a drafty, dilapidated forest ranger's shack and began a culinary journey through the Greater Khingan Range!

Others would throw away the foul-smelling parts of wild beasts, but Zhou Tiezhu refined them into priceless spices. Others wouldn't go near poisonous mushrooms, but with his special technique, Zhou Tiezhu turned them into an otherworldly flavor enhancer.

Top-grade dog bezoars, snow frogs, forest frogs, century-old wild ginseng... They were all just seasoning for his cooking!

Years later, the richest man in the south waited outside a restaurant for three days in his luxury sedan, with crates of Moutai in hand, just to beg for a plate of the legendary scallion-braised bear paw.

But Zhou Tiezhu took off his apron and waved him away. "We're closed today. My daughter wants candied hawthorns, so I have to head into the mountains and pick some wild hawthorn berries for her."