Word had it that the Kaifeng Prefect would be staying in the palace for a meal today, and at last Chef Wu of t…
Word had it that the Kaifeng Prefect would be staying in the palace for a meal today, and at last Chef Wu of the Culinary Office could breathe a little easier. If you asked her, His Majesty was far too hard to read.
Her family had served in the palace since Tang times. Their specialties ranged from Divine Roast, made from just four liang taken from a whole sheep and said to ward off summer heat, to Brahman Cloud Buns, Checkerboard Pastries, and Twenty-Four Solar-Term Wontons. It did not matter who sat on the throne. As long as someone had to eat, they would need her family's craft. Only by pleasing the Son of Heaven's palate could they keep a dependable roof over their heads through decades of upheaval.
Who could have guessed that the present emperor's tastes would be harder to read than a needle at the bottom of the sea? Whether she sent up Scarlet Honeyed Delights, the satisfyingly chewy Little Heavenly Crisps, or the silky White Dragon Stew, His Majesty never seemed to remember any one dish for long. Anything carried to his table came back to her with plates and cups scraped clean. Even the more than seventy lifelike steamed flour figures she had made purely for display, not a single one was left.
She asked the steward about it and got only one answer: "He ate them."
He ate them? Steamed flour figures were made to look pretty. Who would eat those? She could never get a proper sense of this ruler's tastes, and it left her with no end of needless worry.
Still, once the Kaifeng Prefect began staying in the palace for meals more often, she finally got some response. The Prefect was a man of taste. If she prepared dishes suited to the season and added a little ingenuity, she could usually win his praise. Whenever that happened, His Majesty would chime in with a few words like "Not bad, not bad," as a token compliment to the chef.
Perhaps her efforts to vary the menu had become too obvious, for the Prefect eventually asked about it. She did not dare hide anything and explained the whole matter from beginning to end. The man at the table looked as though he wanted to smile but was holding it back. After a moment's thought, he called her over and quietly gave her a few instructions. Chef Wu's expression turned strange as well, and she withdrew, hesitant.
That day, the Kaifeng Prefect again remained with His Majesty discussing affairs until noon, and the meal was served as usual. This time, two large bowls of coarse white porcelain were brought in, both steaming hot.
One bowl held three liang of hui mian. The noodles were pulled thin. When lifted with chopsticks, they stretched long with a lively spring, while the milky mutton broth ran down the strands, gleaming in the sunlight like a pale ribbon of jade. A few slices of plain boiled mutton, cut to just the right thickness, lay spread across the top like a cover waiting to be lifted. Beside them floated a small mound of bright green scallions, drifting restlessly about. The moment the mutton was moved aside, the fresh scent of broth and scallion rose with the steam and went straight to the nose, making one's eyes drift back to the bowl again and again. For people of the Central Plains, one of the gravest sins is to let a good bowl of thin, clear, piping-hot noodles sit until it turns soft and soggy.
The other bowl held a full four liang. These noodles were pulled thick, the solid sheets of dough almost as thick as the bowls that held them. Bite into them, and there was the deep satisfaction of feeling your front teeth and canines work through them inch by inch. This bowl held double the mutton, not sliced, but chopped. Fresh-cut pieces sat in the broth, cooked until they curled up tight. The first bowl had a clear broth. This one was glossy with red chili oil. Fat might normally feel greasy on the tongue, but boiled through in scalding-hot mutton broth, it turned into a steaming, glistening pool of temptation. Even simple greens, once they fell into that broth, came up coated in a sheen of oil that would not come off. In an imperial chef's eyes, the cooking fat common in farm kitchens was hardly elegant. But some things taste all the better for not trying to be refined.
His Majesty reached out, took one bowl, and at once bent over it, slurping away. The palace attendant behind him, holding a jade tray, jumped. The Prefect waved a hand, and the attendant hurriedly brought the garlic on the tray over to the Prefect instead. The Prefect split the bulb and set the cloves on the table. His Majesty picked one up, bit into it skin and all, hissed, spat out the skin, and kept eating without even looking up.
The younger brother shot his elder brother a look, then dutifully began peeling the garlic. His elder brother might not care about such things when eating, but he still intended to.
Still, good as mutton-broth noodles were, the meal would have been even better with a few cold dishes to cut the richness. So at last, one final attendant brought up a plate of dressed green leaves: jingjie, grown near Kaifeng, a fragrant herb just right for the season. By rights it should have been to the Prefect's taste, yet at the sight of it he frowned slightly and, without seeming to, nudged the plate toward His Majesty instead.
Hearing the movement, His Majesty looked up and grinned.
"Why, it's jingjie. And such a huge plate of it."
"Mhm."
"Go on, have some. Don't be picky."
"Quit nagging me. I'm not eating it."
"You're a grown man already..."
"If you like it so much, eat it yourself."
"Just one bite. One bite, and the two of us can say we've had a big plate of jingjie."
The Prefect had been guarding his bowl, but at that line he could not help laughing.
"You've eaten so many imperial dishes, and you did not even spare the flour figures. How does that not count as having seen the world? Barely anyone gets to taste that much."
"How was I supposed to know they weren't meant to be eaten? Besides, they were made with good flour. Wouldn't it have been a waste to let them go bad?"
"You ate dozens of them, and you still weren't full?"
"Not all at once. I wasn't full. I just got badly choked up by the end. Drank a lot of water."
"Next time, give them to other people."
"Yeah... I still can't get used to it. I always feel like leftovers are mine."
"Not the worst habit."
"How so?"
The younger brother thought of it and nearly lost his composure, quickly lowering his head to his noodles to hide his smile.
"Tell us," a young palace maid in the Culinary Office could not help asking the same question His Majesty had. "Chef, what did the Prefect say to you? Does His Majesty like noodles?"
"He said..." Chef Wu's expression turned strange again, her nose wrinkling. "His Majesty is... easy to feed."
"Easy to feed?"
The maid and the chef looked at each other. They had seen Sons of Heaven who demanded rare delicacies, phoenix marrow and dragon liver. But a Son of Heaven who was easy to feed?
That really was enough to make them feel as though they had eaten a big plate of jingjie themselves.