Chapter 5 – Buying Ingredients
Only a few small items remained arranged in front of Gu Zheng.
One bottle only contained fifty millimeters of honey. Gu Zheng had received this bottle of honey when he had won a Gourmet Review competition and received it as a reward. Furthermore, it was the highest reward and he merely received this little.
At that time he had even had to persuade them, harvesting this type of honey was incredibly difficult. Within a select few of Yungui County’s mountains, there was a certain type of red beautiful flower. This flower’s nectar compared to other flower’s was completely different. It had a penetrating fragrance that could cleanse one’s spirit and mend one’s mind. This kind of flower worked in a way that the more you smelled it the more benefits it gave to your spirit. However, processing these flowers required careful and precise actions.
When using this honey extracted from this red graceful flower, its fragrance and sweetness were far better compared to the common honey. Most importantly, after drinking just a mouthful of this honey, it would enter the innermost part of a person, and reinvigorate their soul, leaving them relaxed and energetic for an entire day.
There weren’t many of those graceful red flowers. Each year they were able to extract very little honey, thus it was extremely expensive. The total taken out by the competition was around 100 milliliters. The other 50 milliliters had all been drunk by Gu Zheng over this past year, it was extremely delicious. It could still stimulate him. This was the most important item within Gu Zheng’s ingredient hoard.
However, out of all of his ingredients, only this one was considered average.
Next to the honey was a wild mountain ginseng that had aged for several tens of years. This was an ingredient left to him by his father. Every year, Gu Zheng’s father came back for a short while to live together with his son. It was used as a base ingredient for soup.
Wild mountain ginseng, this was the item that surprised Gu Zheng the most.
There was also a single jar of sorghum rice that Gu Zheng had bought himself online. The seller had said that he himself had grown it, and that is was genuine natural sorghum rice with no fertilizers or agricultural chemicals. Furthermore, it was grown next to a mountain spring. Its flavor was both strong and delicious.
Wild mountain ginseng, sorghum rice, they were both second-class ingredients. There was also a bottle of seasoning that Gu Zheng’s father had brought from overseas, yet it was still merely second-class.
One average-class ingredient, including the water source, three second-class ingredients, two second-class seasonings. This was all that was in Gu Zheng’s home. There were no other ingredients that were found, only these few. Not only talking about three people, it wasn’t even enough for one person. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to make a proper meal.
Furthermore, the highest-quality olive oil in his kitchen was rated as inferior quality. All his salt, vinegar, and soy sauce were all rated as poor quality. Obviously, there was no way he could cook.
“Gu Zheng, What are you doing? How have you not started yet?”
Wang Tao had walked over to get some water. After he had reached the entrance to the kitchen and looked at him. Unfortunately, he didn’t know that when Gu Zheng was cooking, he didn’t like people to be around him. Typically, he didn’t even let others enter the kitchen. They had long since approached to help.
“I won’t be cooking today, there’s not enough stuff in the house. How about you guys go out to eat. Tomorrow- tomorrow you guys should come over and I’ll definitely make you a superb delicacy, it will be at a level that you have never tasted!”
While Gu Zheng was speaking he was practically grinding his teeth. He wouldn’t get anywhere without the necessary materials. This damn test was way too strict, Just relying on these select few items was impossible, he could only delay for another day.
After losing a day, the pressure on Gu Zheng increased by another degree. He only had three days, and within these three days, he had to satisfy three people’s taste buds. He had to make them believe that it was the best thing that they had ever tasted, otherwise, he would be erased.
In order to save himself, in order to not be erased, Gu Zheng could only go for broke and give it his all.
“So it’s like this, so be it!”
Wang Tao was pretty disappointed at first, however, he quickly became excited as he looked forward to what Gu Zheng had promised. He had said that he would make a dish that would be the best dish that they would have ever tasted, obviously, it would be incredibly delicious.
Typically, the dishes prepared by Gu Zheng were usually delicious. Although he had never eaten it before, for him to ensure that it would be the best, then most likely it was true. There wasn’t a problem with waiting another day. He knew Gu Zheng pretty well as they had been together for several years now and they were very understanding of each other. Gu Zheng was never the type to falsely boast if he said so then it definitely would be so.
During the night, Gu Zheng did not go with the other three and instead sent them off. He immediately called a taxi to go to the market. The test was so strict, and he wasn’t clear on how the quality levels of the ingredients were divided. However, if he was unable to find suitable ingredients, he would still fail the test.
Time was tight, he couldn’t afford to waste even a single moment.
“This is quite a decent item from Malaysian swallow cup. Furthermore, it is a white swallow, which is already difficult to find, yet it’s still only considered poor quality?”
After arriving at the market, internally. Gu Zheng had been howling in rage nonstop. A lot of ingredients were shown to be of poor quality, even ingredients that were considered poisonous appeared. Which made many of the items results unable to surprise him. However, he didn’t expect that this swallow’s nest that he casually looked at that was supposedly a high-quality product from Malaysia’s Swallow Cup was actually ranked as poor quality ingredient.
(T/N: Honestly, the context in which this is written is a nightmare. As it’s quite a minor thing, I didn’t focus too much on it, but it seems that there is a company of some sort from Malaysia specializing in swallows, or birds. In this case, I’m pretty sure, “swallows nest” refers to “bird’s nest” which can be connected to bird’s nest soup I suppose.)
The price of this swallow’s nest wasn’t low. Gu Zheng himself could identify and rate quite a variety of ingredients, he could see that the quality of this swallow’s nest was quite good, he examined it once more but still wasn’t able to understand. He wouldn’t have thought that it would be of poor quality.
“Master God of Gluttony’s division of ingredients were extremely strict. Thing’s like this that contain saliva, if it isn’t trash, then what is it. This kind of trash ingredient, you can eat it, however, it absolutely cannot be used in the test.”
The voice of the spirit device was very dry, yet it seemed to contain a hint of pride.
“So cruel!” Gu Zheng angrily fumed. In the end, he spoke once and went silent.
“Spinach and black beans, poor quality!”
“Fresh peas and almonds, inferior quality!”
Property of © Fantasy-Books.live; outside of it, it is stolen.
Gu Zheng silently suffered as he listened to the various inferior and poor quality evaluations. There were a plethora of items that he had picked up before having to put it down immediately. He rode a horse through the market searching profusely. He had come here many times before and was confident in his familiarity, however, his confidence in the market got increasingly smaller and he slowly became desperate.
“Ground sesame oil, second-class!”
Gu Zheng was about to put down the bottle, just as he was thinking of leaving, Gu Zheng turned back around. He had already walked around for half an hour and had most likely picked up a hundred ingredients by now. This was the first second-class ingredient that he had heard today.
It was an ordinary glass bottle that contained 250 milliliters of yellow-brown sesame oil. The shop was selling a variety of oils and exuded a strong oily scent.
Sesame oil has had a long history within this country. People had eaten sesame oil since as early as the Era of the Three Kingdoms. (T/N: So I omitted part of the original text here. He basically listed 4 different ways of writing sesame oil in Chinese, which would be weird in English.)
The method of producing sesame oil was quite different from the process of other oils. It was far from a simple oil. Sesame oil is divided into two main types, cooked and raw sesame oil. Both used sesame seeds as their raw ingredient. The white sesame seeds were fried, then squeezed. When squeezed, a transparent oil with a slight yellow tint is produced. It didn’t have a rich aroma but instead had a unique aroma. This is known as raw sesame oil.
Sesame oil could be used cold, as well as heated for cooking purposes. It also has it uses in Chinese medicine as well as a form of fuel. After being lit, it would release a delicate clear fragrance. When people went to temples to burn incense or pray, some would donate a bit of sesame oil. This would allow for the Buddhist altar lamp in front of the temple to continue burning unceasingly. Some people wouldn’t bring sesame oil, but would instead bring money, which would be called ‘sesame oil money’.
Cooked sesame oil, also known as ground sesame oil, has its own process. The sesame seeds are once again fried, before being pressed down to extract the oils. After being pressed, a grindstone would be used. While there are hundreds of techniques, they would slowly extract the oil grind by grind. The stone grinding process was incredibly complex, only the finest old artisans were able to grind out pure sesame oil. This kind of ground sesame oil had a yellow-brown color, rich flavor, and a fragrance that could spread around for 300 miles when the bottle was opened.
This supposed opening the bottle and it’s fragrance stretching for 300 miles is a definite exaggeration, however, it still shows the strength of this sesame oil’s fragrance.
Today, most of the market contained blended sesame oil. Even if the brand claims that it is ground sesame oil, it doesn’t necessarily mean its fake. It’s merely blended with other things and is of a lower quality. True pure sesame oil is difficult to purchase.
However, even some pure sesame oil can be of lower quality and still be considered an inferior quality ingredient. Gu Zheng had Ground sesame oil in his house as well, furthermore, it was a bucket of it that weighed ten pounds. Gu Zheng had purchased it from a small oil grinding shop. In fact, he even personally watched them grind it. Gu Zheng paid them and gave them raw materials. After grinding the sesame seeds, the excess waste is typically disposed of, so as to avoid it being fake, he had done so and received true pure sesame oil.
The oil in Gu Zheng’s house was considered low quality, yet this bottle is considered second-class. Incredible, this sesame oil is better than the one that he paid for personally and even sought out a person capable of grinding sesame oil?
Chapter 5 – Buying Ingredients
Only a few small items remained arranged in front of Gu Zheng.
One bottle only contained fifty millimeters of honey. Gu Zheng had received this bottle of honey when he had won a Gourmet Review competition and received it as a reward. Furthermore, it was the highest reward and he merely received this little.
At that time he had even had to persuade them, harvesting this type of honey was incredibly difficult. Within a select few of Yungui County’s mountains, there was a certain type of red beautiful flower. This flower’s nectar compared to other flower’s was completely different. It had a penetrating fragrance that could cleanse one’s spirit and mend one’s mind. This kind of flower worked in a way that the more you smelled it the more benefits it gave to your spirit. However, processing these flowers required careful and precise actions.
When using this honey extracted from this red graceful flower, its fragrance and sweetness were far better compared to the common honey. Most importantly, after drinking just a mouthful of this honey, it would enter the innermost part of a person, and reinvigorate their soul, leaving them relaxed and energetic for an entire day.
There weren’t many of those graceful red flowers. Each year they were able to extract very little honey, thus it was extremely expensive. The total taken out by the competition was around 100 milliliters. The other 50 milliliters had all been drunk by Gu Zheng over this past year, it was extremely delicious. It could still stimulate him. This was the most important item within Gu Zheng’s ingredient hoard.
However, out of all of his ingredients, only this one was considered average.
Next to the honey was a wild mountain ginseng that had aged for several tens of years. This was an ingredient left to him by his father. Every year, Gu Zheng’s father came back for a short while to live together with his son. It was used as a base ingredient for soup.
Wild mountain ginseng, this was the item that surprised Gu Zheng the most.
There was also a single jar of sorghum rice that Gu Zheng had bought himself online. The seller had said that he himself had grown it, and that is was genuine natural sorghum rice with no fertilizers or agricultural chemicals. Furthermore, it was grown next to a mountain spring. Its flavor was both strong and delicious.
Wild mountain ginseng, sorghum rice, they were both second-class ingredients. There was also a bottle of seasoning that Gu Zheng’s father had brought from overseas, yet it was still merely second-class.
One average-class ingredient, including the water source, three second-class ingredients, two second-class seasonings. This was all that was in Gu Zheng’s home. There were no other ingredients that were found, only these few. Not only talking about three people, it wasn’t even enough for one person. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to make a proper meal.
Furthermore, the highest-quality olive oil in his kitchen was rated as inferior quality. All his salt, vinegar, and soy sauce were all rated as poor quality. Obviously, there was no way he could cook.
“Gu Zheng, What are you doing? How have you not started yet?”
Wang Tao had walked over to get some water. After he had reached the entrance to the kitchen and looked at him. Unfortunately, he didn’t know that when Gu Zheng was cooking, he didn’t like people to be around him. Typically, he didn’t even let others enter the kitchen. They had long since approached to help.
“I won’t be cooking today, there’s not enough stuff in the house. How about you guys go out to eat. Tomorrow- tomorrow you guys should come over and I’ll definitely make you a superb delicacy, it will be at a level that you have never tasted!”
While Gu Zheng was speaking he was practically grinding his teeth. He wouldn’t get anywhere without the necessary materials. This damn test was way too strict, Just relying on these select few items was impossible, he could only delay for another day.
After losing a day, the pressure on Gu Zheng increased by another degree. He only had three days, and within these three days, he had to satisfy three people’s taste buds. He had to make them believe that it was the best thing that they had ever tasted, otherwise, he would be erased.
In order to save himself, in order to not be erased, Gu Zheng could only go for broke and give it his all.
“So it’s like this, so be it!”
Wang Tao was pretty disappointed at first, however, he quickly became excited as he looked forward to what Gu Zheng had promised. He had said that he would make a dish that would be the best dish that they would have ever tasted, obviously, it would be incredibly delicious.
Typically, the dishes prepared by Gu Zheng were usually delicious. Although he had never eaten it before, for him to ensure that it would be the best, then most likely it was true. There wasn’t a problem with waiting another day. He knew Gu Zheng pretty well as they had been together for several years now and they were very understanding of each other. Gu Zheng was never the type to falsely boast if he said so then it definitely would be so.
During the night, Gu Zheng did not go with the other three and instead sent them off. He immediately called a taxi to go to the market. The test was so strict, and he wasn’t clear on how the quality levels of the ingredients were divided. However, if he was unable to find suitable ingredients, he would still fail the test.
Time was tight, he couldn’t afford to waste even a single moment.
“This is quite a decent item from Malaysian swallow cup. Furthermore, it is a white swallow, which is already difficult to find, yet it’s still only considered poor quality?”
After arriving at the market, internally. Gu Zheng had been howling in rage nonstop. A lot of ingredients were shown to be of poor quality, even ingredients that were considered poisonous appeared. Which made many of the items results unable to surprise him. However, he didn’t expect that this swallow’s nest that he casually looked at that was supposedly a high-quality product from Malaysia’s Swallow Cup was actually ranked as poor quality ingredient.
(T/N: Honestly, the context in which this is written is a nightmare. As it’s quite a minor thing, I didn’t focus too much on it, but it seems that there is a company of some sort from Malaysia specializing in swallows, or birds. In this case, I’m pretty sure, “swallows nest” refers to “bird’s nest” which can be connected to bird’s nest soup I suppose.)
The price of this swallow’s nest wasn’t low. Gu Zheng himself could identify and rate quite a variety of ingredients, he could see that the quality of this swallow’s nest was quite good, he examined it once more but still wasn’t able to understand. He wouldn’t have thought that it would be of poor quality.
“Master God of Gluttony’s division of ingredients were extremely strict. Thing’s like this that contain saliva, if it isn’t trash, then what is it. This kind of trash ingredient, you can eat it, however, it absolutely cannot be used in the test.”
The voice of the spirit device was very dry, yet it seemed to contain a hint of pride.
“So cruel!” Gu Zheng angrily fumed. In the end, he spoke once and went silent.
“Spinach and black beans, poor quality!”
“Fresh peas and almonds, inferior quality!”
Property of © Fantasy-Books.live; outside of it, it is stolen.
Gu Zheng silently suffered as he listened to the various inferior and poor quality evaluations. There were a plethora of items that he had picked up before having to put it down immediately. He rode a horse through the market searching profusely. He had come here many times before and was confident in his familiarity, however, his confidence in the market got increasingly smaller and he slowly became desperate.
“Ground sesame oil, second-class!”
Gu Zheng was about to put down the bottle, just as he was thinking of leaving, Gu Zheng turned back around. He had already walked around for half an hour and had most likely picked up a hundred ingredients by now. This was the first second-class ingredient that he had heard today.
It was an ordinary glass bottle that contained 250 milliliters of yellow-brown sesame oil. The shop was selling a variety of oils and exuded a strong oily scent.
Sesame oil has had a long history within this country. People had eaten sesame oil since as early as the Era of the Three Kingdoms. (T/N: So I omitted part of the original text here. He basically listed 4 different ways of writing sesame oil in Chinese, which would be weird in English.)
The method of producing sesame oil was quite different from the process of other oils. It was far from a simple oil. Sesame oil is divided into two main types, cooked and raw sesame oil. Both used sesame seeds as their raw ingredient. The white sesame seeds were fried, then squeezed. When squeezed, a transparent oil with a slight yellow tint is produced. It didn’t have a rich aroma but instead had a unique aroma. This is known as raw sesame oil.
Sesame oil could be used cold, as well as heated for cooking purposes. It also has it uses in Chinese medicine as well as a form of fuel. After being lit, it would release a delicate clear fragrance. When people went to temples to burn incense or pray, some would donate a bit of sesame oil. This would allow for the Buddhist altar lamp in front of the temple to continue burning unceasingly. Some people wouldn’t bring sesame oil, but would instead bring money, which would be called ‘sesame oil money’.
Cooked sesame oil, also known as ground sesame oil, has its own process. The sesame seeds are once again fried, before being pressed down to extract the oils. After being pressed, a grindstone would be used. While there are hundreds of techniques, they would slowly extract the oil grind by grind. The stone grinding process was incredibly complex, only the finest old artisans were able to grind out pure sesame oil. This kind of ground sesame oil had a yellow-brown color, rich flavor, and a fragrance that could spread around for 300 miles when the bottle was opened.
This supposed opening the bottle and it’s fragrance stretching for 300 miles is a definite exaggeration, however, it still shows the strength of this sesame oil’s fragrance.
Today, most of the market contained blended sesame oil. Even if the brand claims that it is ground sesame oil, it doesn’t necessarily mean its fake. It’s merely blended with other things and is of a lower quality. True pure sesame oil is difficult to purchase.
However, even some pure sesame oil can be of lower quality and still be considered an inferior quality ingredient. Gu Zheng had Ground sesame oil in his house as well, furthermore, it was a bucket of it that weighed ten pounds. Gu Zheng had purchased it from a small oil grinding shop. In fact, he even personally watched them grind it. Gu Zheng paid them and gave them raw materials. After grinding the sesame seeds, the excess waste is typically disposed of, so as to avoid it being fake, he had done so and received true pure sesame oil.
The oil in Gu Zheng’s house was considered low quality, yet this bottle is considered second-class. Incredible, this sesame oil is better than the one that he paid for personally and even sought out a person capable of grinding sesame oil?
