Chapter 831: Gu Family Private Cuisine

"Alright, thank you, Seventh Uncle."

Before the two of them even reached home, they had already arranged their cooperation for after they returned.

After the meatball mixture is beaten until firm, it is steamed in a pot for about an hour.

During this time, everyone went to the living room to chat.

Sheng Zichen liked this Xi Fu too much, pestering him with questions; Gu Zhihao liked children, and liked him even more because he was such a cute child.

He answered every question asked.

It turned out that Gu Zhihao's grandfather and father were both chefs.

His grandfather's generation were already relatively famous chefs, and his father's generation was even more incredible; thirty years ago, he was a chef of some renown in Jiangzhou.

Originally, the family lived in a big city.

When he was still very small, about the same age as Sheng Zichen, something happened to the family.

The Second Chef at the restaurant was jealous of Gu's father's skill and framed him by poisoning the food of a customer.

The dish Gu's father made was poisoned, killing a customer, and because of this, he got into a lawsuit and was thrown into Prison.

He suffered a lot in Prison, but he refused to admit he had done the poisoning, insisting he had been framed.

After his father went to Prison, his mother went everywhere to petition, file lawsuits, and lodge complaints to clear his name!

Before there was any progress on the complaints, the money in the family had already been spent.

Gu's mother was not discouraged; she sold the house to continue the fight!

Two years passed.

Hard work pays off; thanks to her unremitting efforts, there was finally some progress this time.

People from above came down to reinvestigate, and the Second Chef, who had become the head chef of the restaurant, felt guilty and let his guard down, admitting that he was the one who had done the poisoning back then!

Gu's father was released from Prison, and the restaurant was still willing to hire him back as a chef with a high salary, but his heart was already broken; not only did he not return to work at the restaurant, but he also swore never to be involved in this industry again.

Although the state paid a sum of money in compensation, his wife's health had been ruined by two years of fear and worry for him.

All the money was spent on medical treatment and medicine, but she could not be saved, and Gu's mother passed away.

Heartbroken, Gu's father buried his wife, then took young Gu Zhihao to a very remote rural village to put down roots, and the father and son relied on each other to survive.

Since he was small, his father told him: "Even if you starve to death, even if you have to beg for food, you must never become a chef."

He detested the profession of a chef, but he had a natural love for cooking; this love, radiating from within his heart, could not be suppressed at all.

Gu's father built a shed behind the house; when he was tired from work, he would go in and tinker for a long time, then bring out a few plates of delicious dishes for his son to eat.

When Gu Zhihao was young, he had nothing else to do, and a child's love for food is instinctual, so he would hide outside the door and peek through the cracks.

Later, he was no longer satisfied with just peeking from outside, so he secretly went into the kitchen to cook for himself.

At first, his father discovered him and gave him a sound beating.

But later, he tacitly allowed him to enter the kitchen, and even later, his father taught him how to cook.

Life in the countryside was too monotonous; if there wasn't some hobby to sustain him, he really didn't know how he would have endured the long passage of time.

Allowing him into the kitchen was one thing, but his father made him swear—even if he were to starve to death or die of hunger, he could never engage in the profession of a chef.

He swore, and later, even when he was living in dire poverty and collecting scrap in the city, he never once had the thought of becoming a chef.

The Lion Head that Sheng Zichen brought back from Xi Fu's house became the most popular dish on the Sheng Family dining table.

The little guy was very proud, vividly recounting the whole process of Xi Fu making the Pan-seared Pork Knuckle.

Sheng Jiang was stunned: "Pan-seared Pork Knuckle? This is a lost secret art of the Gu Family. What a pity, what a pity; the descendant of Old Master Gu is actually collecting scrap?"

"Dad, what is Gu Family Private Cuisine?" Shi Youxuan asked.

It wasn't just her who didn't know; Sheng Hanyu hadn't heard of it either.

Sheng Jiang said: "You younger generation haven't heard of it. I only ate it when I was very small, and I never ate it again after that. That taste is something that makes you miss it for a lifetime..."

When Sheng Jiang was a child, Gu Family Private Dishes were very famous in Jiangzhou at the time, and they were renowned for a time.

At that time, when prominent families or social elites had elders celebrating birthdays, or held weddings or funerals, they all considered it an honor to be able to invite Old Master Gu to their home to cook.

Some families even had a requirement for the groom's side regarding whether they could invite Old Master Gu to cook at the wedding banquet.

If they couldn't invite the old master to cook, it would be seen as a great loss of face, and it was common for the old master's time to be booked up to half a year in advance.

The Gu Family had several signature dishes back then, among which the Pan-seared Pork Knuckle and Steamed Lion's Head were the most famous.

These two dishes became the two dishes that guests had to order.

A tall tree catches the wind.

When fame grows, it is inevitable that one will be envied. Later, the old master didn't know who he had offended, and he was forcibly framed with the crime of "colluding with the enemy" and thrown into Prison.

Colluding with the enemy was a lie; wanting the recipes was the truth.

As a chef, what enemy could he collude with?

The old master was very stubborn and refused to hand over the recipes even if it killed him. In Prison, he shouted: "Our family has no recipes, and even if we did, if they were placed in front of you, you wouldn't be able to make them."

"Cooking is something that requires talent plus diligent study and hard practice; it's not something you can learn just like that."

The old master later died in Prison.

Sheng Jiang sighed: "I never thought I would be able to eat Gu Family food in my lifetime; it's just like a dream."

He wanted to see the descendant of the Gu Family with his own eyes and have a chat.

Invite Gu Zhihao to be a guest at home; it wouldn't be right to make a guest cook.

So Shi Youxuan called her father to tell him that the whole family was preparing to go to his house the next day!

The entire Sheng Family was coming, and the Shi Family was busy as a pot of porridge.

The Shi Family.

Shi Yucheng had the servants clean the house, which wasn't messy to begin with, all over again, tidying it up until it was spotless and immaculate.

Slippers and sofa cushions were all replaced with new ones, and even the curtains were changed.

The tea leaves were the good ones the second son-in-law had brought over last time; he hadn't been able to bring himself to drink them, so it was perfect to use them to host the in-laws this time.

He went to buy the snacks and fruit himself, not even asking the price, only picking the most expensive ones to buy.

The Shi Family was usually frugal in their daily life, picking seasonal fruits and buying the slightly cheaper ones.

But today was different; it wasn't just his second daughter coming, but Sheng Jiang and his wife as well.

When Shi Yucheng was a driver for the Sheng Family, he knew the Sheng Family's extravagance, and he was afraid of being shabby and slighting his guests, so he started getting busy the moment he hung up the phone, right up until the guests arrived.

It was clear they had come to sponge a meal today, and the whole family had brought gifts.

"Welcome, welcome! Hello, Eldest Young Master, it's been a long time; are you still in good health?" Although Sheng Jiang was already over sixty years old, Shi Yucheng still couldn't break his old habit of addressing him that way.

Sheng Jiang: "In-law, if you talk like that, you're driving me away. Your daughter has been married to my son for so many years; we are in-laws, why are you still calling me Eldest Young Master?" He laughed heartily; although his words were a reproach, there wasn't a hint of displeasure in his tone.

This was not at all like the "Eldest Young Master" in Shi Yucheng's memory.

Back when he was a driver for the old master at the Sheng Family, "Eldest Young Master" was absolutely the epitome of a bully who feared the strong and picked on the weak.

In front of people stronger than him, Sheng Jiang was timid and subservient, unable to even speak clearly.

But in front of those weaker than him or of lower status, Sheng Jiang would immediately become overbearing, sharp-tongued, and mean.

This was also the reason why Shi Yucheng had tried his best not to go to the Sheng Family or have contact with Sheng Jiang over the years.

But now it was different; Sheng Jiang had changed so much that he didn't even recognize him anymore.

He didn't know why he had changed, but regardless, change was always a good thing.