In February weather, grass grew and orioles flew, the vast misty mountain colors gradually turned green under the gentle breeze. The days Zhenzhen spent with Lin Hong also entered spring along with the seasons.
Lin Hong led Zhenzhen along the babbling streams to explore the mountain temple’s fragrant beauty. Together they admired apricot blossoms bursting from the rocks, evaluated the new buds of tea trees in the mountains, gathered mushrooms on the pine-shaded ground, and dug spring bamboo shoots in the verdant bamboo groves. Lin Hong taught Zhenzhen to distinguish the subtle differences between peach, plum, apricot, and mountain cherry blossoms, telling her in detail about the origins and allusions of the flowers, birds, fish, and insects they encountered. Of course, he never forgot to mention the cooking techniques for spring delicacies.
“How would you prepare newly grown bamboo shoots?” Lin Hong asked Zhenzhen.
After pondering, Zhenzhen said: “Slice them, coat the slices with spices and batter, then fry them in oil until golden yellow—sweet and crisp. Or like Teacher once did, cut them into squares and cook porridge with rice, the color like white jade, also extremely beautiful.”
“Yes, these two methods—one like cooking gold, one like boiling jade—are both excellent. But there’s another method, extremely simple in preparation, yet it captures the true flavor of fresh bamboo shoots even better.” Lin Hong surveyed the bamboo forest before them and pointed to some fallen leaves, saying to Zhenzhen: “Bamboo leaves fall easily; in a few more days, there will be even more dead leaves that can be gathered into piles. When the time comes, sweep the fallen leaves around the newly sprouted bamboo shoots, light a fire, and cook them right there beside the bamboo. The sweet freshness achieved this way is incomparable to other methods. I call bamboo shoots prepared this way ‘Forest-side Fresh.'”
Zhenzhen sighed in admiration: “The master chefs I saw in childhood were often renowned for their skillful use of seasonings, and some even boasted of making vegetarian dishes taste like meat. Before coming here, I also thought Teacher’s dishes would excel in flavoring, but I didn’t expect Teacher’s meals to be mostly light, pursuing the true taste of ingredients with not many added seasonings. This ‘Forest-side Fresh’ not only uses no seasonings but even saves on pots, bowls, and cooking utensils.”
Lin Hong smiled faintly: “With any ingredient, as long as it’s seasonal and fresh, even simple steaming or blanching will produce good flavor, often allowing one to taste the seasonal fragrance better than heavily seasoned food. Just like a woman in her prime—she needs no lead powder or artificial adornment; her natural face is perfect, and whether speaking, laughing, or showing displeasure, she appears beautiful in every way.”
Zhenzhen quickly calculated her age in her mind—she was still nearly a month away from turning seventeen. “So…” she asked Lin Hong cautiously, “perhaps I’m not so plain and unremarkable in Teacher’s eyes?”
Lin Hong was startled, then couldn’t help but laugh. He didn’t answer Zhenzhen’s question, instead turning toward the mountain interior. He stepped over a stream flowing with gurgling water, and seeing Zhenzhen still standing in place, her gaze hesitating between his face and the stream, he extended his right hand toward her: “Come.”
Zhenzhen was completely bewildered. She didn’t immediately follow—partly because she was regretting that her earlier remark had been too forward and Teacher might think it immodest, and partly because she was still hesitating about whether to cross the stream. The width of this brook seemed perfectly manageable to her, but she worried that leaping across suddenly and impetuously might startle Teacher.
And now, she was almost startled by Lin Hong’s gesture of extending his hand. That hand with its slender, clean, pale fingers now openly spread before her eyes, palm upward, as if waiting for her to reach out and grasp it. It appeared Teacher wanted to help her cross the small stream.
Several questions instantly swirled in Zhenzhen’s mind: Wasn’t he afraid of skin contact with others? If he held my hand, would he feel that chill again? Should I extend my hand to him or not?
Lin Hong seemed to perceive her confusion, or perhaps thinking she was concerned about propriety between men and women, he drew his sleeve to cover his right hand and still extended it to Zhenzhen.
So Zhenzhen walked to the stream’s edge, lowered her head, and placed her right hand into Lin Hong’s palm covered by his sleeve. Feeling the warmth from his palm through the layer of fabric, she was led across in a daze as if floating on clouds, completely forgetting how she had crossed the small stream.
Zhenzhen continued following Lin Hong in exploring hidden beauty and seeking fragrance, feeling the mountain scenery had become several degrees more beautiful. White clouds were clearing, orioles pursued them all along the way, gentle breezes rustled, lingering on their clothes. Zhenzhen walked behind Lin Hong, letting his flowing robes’ shadow overlap with her own, maintaining silence, yet with a smile on her lips and what felt like four or five sparrows leaping in her heart.
They reached a mountain valley where plum blossoms fell like snow, ice-silk petals drifting with the wind into the ravine and flowing away with the water. The ravine water was clear, gurgling downward, its sound particularly ethereal in the secluded valley, like the sound of a harp. Several clusters of green shoots grew beside the ravine, colored like the fresh green of smoke willows, with undried clear dew still on the leaves, making them appear even more fresh and tender.
“This is water celery,” Zhenzhen pointed to the cluster of green shoots.
Lin Hong nodded: “The jade stream soup I had you taste before was made from water celery from here.”
“Did Teacher also name it ‘jade stream soup’?” Zhenzhen asked.
Lin Hong said: “This name comes from Du Fu’s poem line ‘fresh crucian carp silver thread sashimi, fragrant celery jade stream soup,’ depicting spring mountain forest delicacies.” Seeing Zhenzhen’s expression brighten, he asked for the reason. Zhenzhen then told him about the previous competition with Yibei Lou, mentioning that Zhao Huaiyu had taught Yibei Lou to make jade stream soup: “At the time, I only felt that Yibei Lou was pandering to the tribute student, using elegant names to disguise ordinary vegetables. But today, coming to this place and observing the scenery here, I understand the origin of the name jade stream soup—it’s indeed quite fitting.”
Lin Hong said: “Cooking water celery with stream water produces a soup that’s light and fragrant. Hearing the name jade stream soup before tasting it, that fragrance seems to bring the spring valley scenery to one’s tongue, so this name serves to highlight the theme, not to disguise.”
Seeing Zhenzhen still savoring his words, Lin Hong asked her again: “If you were making cream cherry in summer—spreading cherries over ice chips and drizzling them with cream and honey—and you had two container choices, a lacquered plate or a crystal plate, which would you choose?”
Zhenzhen said: “Naturally the crystal plate. Eating cream cherry in summer is meant to cool down, so serving it in a crystal plate, with the container also resembling ice and snow, would make one feel even more refreshed.”
Lin Hong smiled: “Exactly. Actually, neither the lacquered plate nor crystal plate affects the taste of cream cherry, but their visual impact differs, and the diner’s experience would be different too. Dish names are like containers, meant to add finishing touches. Though they don’t change the food’s taste, they’re not useless either. As for the allusions involved, whether to explain them and how to explain them depends on the person and timing. Done well, one can discuss past and present, offer advice and reasoning. Done poorly, or without choosing the right time and person, it becomes pretentious.”
Zhenzhen deeply agreed. Lin Hong continued: “When a dish benefits body and mind, this is beauty of heart; when it tastes excellent, this is beauty of flavor; when plated skillfully, this is beauty of form; when elegantly named, this is beauty of name. If a dish possesses all four beauties, it will satisfy the diner’s appetite while soothing their aesthetic sense, making them feel doubly pleased. And when we cook, we shouldn’t consider ourselves mere kitchen workers. Pondering culinary arts, like burning incense and arranging flowers, is something related to beauty that can nourish body and mind, temper one’s will, and enhance one’s cultivation.”
Zhenzhen remained silent, thinking that Master was a worldly hermit without worries, so he could treat culinary arts like the refined pursuits of incense and flower arrangement. But Mother and the senior sisters studied culinary arts intensively to make a living in this mundane world, and now she herself was using culinary skills as a ladder to enter the palace, bearing heavy responsibilities—how could she treat it as lightly as he did? Thinking it over, not knowing what to say, she finally let out a long sigh: “So difficult, so difficult.”
Lin Hong also seemed to sense her thoughts and said: “You came to learn from me, saying it was to make a living, but I always feel it’s not just that. In the kitchen, you always have some inexplicable anxiety. You care about techniques, imitating me everywhere, but lack contemplation. Perhaps you have something very important that needs to be solved through culinary arts. You don’t need to tell me, but I only hope that someday, after you’ve solved your problem, you can let go of all utilitarian motives and, with a light and happy heart, create food that possesses all four beauties for yourself.”