Lu Flavor, 1982: Starting as a Banquet Chef

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

Lin Yaoming, the village's biggest headache, suddenly turned over a new leaf.

He stopped sneaking into widows' homes and stealing chickens and ducks.

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

But then the old Zhao family in the eastern part of the village held a funeral banquet. The rich, savory aroma of Shandong cuisine drifted across half the village on the autumn breeze, making the half-grown boys in the neighboring brigade cry as they ate steamed buns. Only then did the villagers from miles around suddenly realize:

That good-for-nothing only son of the Lin family had a godlike talent for cooking!

Wood-fired stoves, wedding and funeral feasts, four-joy meatballs, and fish cooked in roof tiles.

An experienced chef, reborn into a new life, puts down roots in the black soil of western Shandong. Starting with one steaming banquet after another, he slowly brings the fiery eighties to a boil.