Whether we like it or not, life always urges us to move forward. People get ready, set off, travel, and settle down. Wherever they stop, a fire will be lit. From the migration of individual lives to the exchange and transportation of ingredients, from the evolution of cooking methods to the flow of life's destiny, the hurried pace of people and food never stops.

In Linzhi, Tibet, the warm and humid monsoon blows from the Indian Ocean. The plants are growing wildly, and it is the busiest season in Baimazhandui. Gastrodia elata and Ganoderma lucidum are important economic sources, but after a month, they will disappear without a trace. From the canyon to the snow-capped mountains, the 7,000-meter altitude difference makes Linzhi the region with the richest alpine flora in the world. When his younger brother graduated from high school, Baima had to quickly earn enough money to pay for his college education. Before that, he prepared a special gift for his younger brother. Eighty percent of Tibet's forests are concentrated here, and Baima Zhandui carefully searched for the hive discovered a few days ago. Now, he has to find a way to reach the top of the tree. In the eyes of the locals, honey is a valuable nutrition that is worth the risk for him. It sounds unbelievable, but this custom has been going on for hundreds of years. Baima chose a cane to connect himself to the big tree. From now on, this cane is related to his life. It seemed like progress was going well. After an hour, the white horse had climbed very high, but there was still a longer distance to climb. My father was worried and rushed over. Baima Zhandui no longer dared to chop down trees with his hands, and his speed had obviously slowed down. Three hours later, the white horse approaches the canopy and is now ready to break away from the cane. At 40 meters high and without any protection, it's a dangerous walk. Wild bees are not afraid of people. Baima learned from his elders to light smoke to force the bees to give up their resistance and cut the tree holes where the bees hide to get the sweetest honey.

In the isolated forest, sweets are very rare, and honey is the most precious gift that White Horse can bring to his family. Sweetness is the simplest and most primitive food experience for humans. Eighty percent of the ingredients in honey are fructose and glucose. As the only sweet food of early humans, honey can quickly generate calories to replenish physical strength, which was very important to our ancestors. Unlike artificially refined sucrose, the sugar in honey can be directly absorbed by the body without hydrolysis. In Chinese kitchens, whether cooking dishes or making desserts, honey cannot be replaced by other sugars. Of course, the Baima family’s favorite is butter and honey. To obtain honey, for Tibetan young men, they have to climb ten stories high, while for others, they have to trek tens of thousands of kilometers.

The rapeseed has just bloomed, and Tan Guangshu is ready to set off. Lao Tan is a professional beekeeper. For more than 20 years, he has raised a pair of children relying on this job. Every year during Qingming Festival, Lao Tan and his wife Wu Junying embark on a journey to chase the flowering period. One day and night, the beehives were in the Qinling Mountains 500 kilometers away. The taste of flowers determines the taste of honey. Different regions have completely different tastes. This is the magic of honey as a delicacy. Qinling Mountains produces China's top sophora nectar, but Lao Tan is not at ease. After all, raising mountains is a business that depends on the sky. The weather suddenly changed in mid-April, with strong winds and rainfall, and the flowering period ended early. No one knows how long the bad weather will last. More than 20 years ago, Lao Tan promised his fiancée that he would lead her into a sweet career. In the era when transportation was inconvenient, when people traveled far away, they would carry food that could be preserved for a long time. They were commonly known as road vegetables. The vegetables on the road are not only for filling the stomach, but also the taste of hometown that the owner is accustomed to. The seemingly lonely road becomes full of life and fun because of the presence of Sichuan women. My wife can even use simple tools to make douhuaer, which is the simplest and most appetizing delicacy in Sichuan and Chongqing. By heating the brine to connect the protein molecules into a network structure, bean curd is actually a reassembled gel of soy protein. Changes in the intensity of squeezing out water will determine the taste of bean curd. In the simple tent, a spectacle began to unfold. Now it’s seasoning time. Refreshing coriander, cool mint, crispy fried peanuts, and spicy and sour pickles are all enough to make you forget the fatigue of a long journey. A hearty meal marks the beginning of another journey. All belongings, weighing more than ten tons, must be loaded into the truck two hours before dark. Because of work, each beekeeper is away from home for up to eleven months a year. The parents' busy schedule provides a stable life for the two children who are studying. After more than 20 years of hard work, the reason why I don’t feel lonely is that in addition to my stoic husband and hard-working wife, I also have the flavor of my hometown that has accompanied me all the way. Beekeeper Lao Tan and his wife migrated with their bees, while another group of migratory birds traveled lightly, carrying only their hands.

In the northern foothills of the Qinling Mountains, wheat is ripe, and the popularity of mechanical harvesting does not hinder the existence of competitors. Mai Ke, China's ancient professional wheat harvesters, follow the rhythm of wheat maturation and challenge machinery with their hands. Wheat, a crop that once changed the course of human civilization, has the most extensive planting area in the world. From the most common steamed buns, pot helmets, noodles to roujiamo, mutton bubbles and all kinds of snacks, they have jointly laid the unshakable foundation of the noodle kingdom in Shaanxi. However, to taste the most original and simple aroma of noodles, you have to wait until the wheat harvest season. Wheat is rich in starch and protein, and newly harvested wheat is the sweetest. Shaanxi people are accustomed to processing the noodles into a shape of 3 centimeters wide. It is this width, coupled with the appropriate heat, that can highlight the chewy texture and fragrant taste of new wheat. The old lady knows the secrets of making noodles better than anyone else. A bellows and firewood and a strong fire make the noodles stand out.

The toppings made of fungus, carrots, and soft tofu are called Saozi by Shaanxi people. The rich and colorful spicy oil is always the faithful partner of noodles. Treating Mai Ke kindly is an ancestral tradition. A large amount of carbohydrates can maintain the glycosides necessary for the body after heavy physical work. Nowadays, there is no advantage in harvesting wheat by hand. The narrow hillside plot is the last position. Working ten hours a day, each person can harvest more than 1 mu of land and earn up to 200 yuan. This time I have been out for more than ten days, and my income is less than 1,000 yuan. In the face of efficiency, Maike no longer belongs to this era. Ma Wanquan and his team may be the last professional wheat harvesters in China. Ancient professions and time-honored legends are being harvested by machines one after another.

The food in front of you may come from distant seas and mountains. A long time ago, people's living habits have changed from hunting to gathering, but there is only one exception, the ocean, the last hunting ground of mankind. Some scientists predict that all the fish in the sea will be eaten within 50 years. However, Zhejiang fisherman Yang Shilu believes that living off the sea can only last another 10 years. After the three-month fishing moratorium, the East China Sea ushered in the first day of fishing. This kind of small boat is called a couple's boat. It is the feet of fishermen. It travels 60 nautical miles in 4 hours and the couple casts the first net. Sanmen Bay is located on the coast of eastern Zhejiang and was once extremely rich in fish resources. As the 15th day of the lunar calendar approaches, the tide is approaching. My wife is weak and begins to get seasick. Whenever he goes to sea, apart from fishing, cooking and other chores, his husband will do all the chores. This is a tacit understanding between the two of them for more than 20 years. The white crabs are fried, the water is boiled and the noodles are put in. After a simple dinner, it will be 6 hours of hard work. This is the first net after the fishing moratorium, which is very important. We lifted anchor and reeled in the net, which had been dormant underwater for 20 hours. Pulling it out of the water, the scene was disappointing. Finally, a pomfret was found, but it broke free of the net. After 6 hours, there was no fish left. Fortunately, there were other seafood. The sea once again showed its generosity. 50 kilograms of seafood was their reward for a day and night of hard work. Within 10 hours, these sea crabs will appear in restaurants in big cities.

Obtaining ingredients requires extraordinary hard work and patient waiting. This rule also applies to mountains. After searching for more than half a day, Rao Changqing still found nothing. The old man had been waiting for more than 8 months for a special fungus, and now the season has finally arrived. At the foot is deep in the Qingfeng Fault Zone, where moisture condenses at an altitude of 2,400 meters, giving birth to a precious food, the small flower mushroom, a fungus that lives on dead trees, and the king of shiitake mushrooms. Today, shiitake mushrooms have been artificially cultivated and are in excellent quality. But the old man knew that those cultivated mushrooms were not the most delicious. In a low-temperature environment, shiitake mushrooms grow very slowly, but their flesh is thick and plump. The dramatic temperature difference between day and night causes the canopy to crack and bloom. The emergence of small flower mushrooms comes from various coincidences between heaven and earth. Flower mushrooms contain 90% water, and the drying process has hidden secrets. In the charcoal grilling room, there are artificially cultivated shiitake mushrooms. In fact, the taste of fresh shiitake mushrooms is far less than that of dried shiitake mushrooms. The secret is that during the dehydration process, shiitake mushrooms will automatically convert a large amount of guanylate, which has a strong umami taste. Therefore, only after drying can this fungus truly be called a shiitake mushroom. As for the drying of wild flower drums, the old man prefers the most natural method. With the help of sunshine and wind, plump wild flower mushrooms slowly lose their moisture, and the delicious flavor condenses little by little. Compared with cultivated mushrooms, wild flower mushrooms are not uniform in appearance and difficult to sell at a high price. Rao Changqing plans to sell these rare delicacies Leave it to the family.

Whether they rely on mountains or water, workers have delicious food that is exclusive to their families. Watching the tide, the little octopus is endowed with poetic meaning, its scientific name is Short Octopus. Go out when the tide is high and hide when the tide is out. Yang Shilu is a master at catching the tide. The collagen on the surface of Wangchao and the seasonings meet to form a thick oily red sauce. The meat of Wangchao is crispy, tough and chewy. It is the most popular dish of fishermen in the East China Sea. However, my daughter’s favorite food is still hiding on the beach. Mudskippers, also known as jumping fish, are fish that can live on land. Don't try to catch them unless you are willing to spend five years practicing a unique skill. Using a 5-meter-long fishing rod and a 6-meter-long fishing line to catch prey that is only 5 centimeters long from 10 meters away requires no less difficulty and accuracy than shooting a ball from 20 meters away. From force generation to capture, it only takes one-eighth of a second, and high-speed cameras can help us see the entire process clearly. A few jumping fish can make a pot of delicious soup. The meat is tender and the juice is rich. It is smoked and roasted repeatedly with straw to exude fish oil and dried in the sun. It is the best flavor enhancer. It can be paired with other seafood and dishes to enhance the freshness. while maintaining the original flavor of the ingredients to the greatest extent. Elderly people who live alone should also treat themselves. The more precious the delicacy is, the more ordinary it looks on the outside. The kind of happiness that hard work brings to the whole body and mind has always been like this.

Abalone from Dongshan to Shanghai, grouper from Zhuhai to Chengdu, vegetables from Guangxi to Beijing, fungi from Kunming to Xinjiang, today's logistics and people's appetite have greatly accelerated the migration of food ingredients. On the road, it is not just people who are hurrying about. Food is also circulating, evolving different shapes and flavors between gatherings and separations. This large pot, known locally as "銊子", is two meters in diameter and is used to process pancakes, the iconic staple food of Shandong people. However, to appreciate the original craftsmanship of making pancakes, you must go back to the place closest to nature. In midsummer, there is abundant rain, and Yimeng Mountain enters the wettest season. Grandpa built the earthen stove and put on the spatula, which is a tool for making Shandong pancakes.

The main ingredient for making pancakes is flour ground from dried sweet potatoes. Of course, it can also be ground from whole grains such as soybeans, wheat, sorghum, and corn. Chunshugou is located deep in the Mengshan Mountains, and the ancient customs are stubbornly preserved. Today is grandma's birthday, and Xiaohui's family has been busy for several days. The griddle is heated, the batter is spread evenly, the multigrain batter is quickly formed, the steam is diffused, and the air is soaked with a simple sweet aroma, which is the unique smell of grains. The firepower is crucial. If it is too strong, it will easily burn, and if it is too small, the pancake will be moist and sticky. tooth. Grandma, who has more than 60 years of experience, has the best craftsmanship, and the cooking is all controlled by her hands. The pancakes are crispy and fragrant just out of the pan, and they will slowly soften and become tougher when cooled completely. Today, pancakes can be used to wrap almost any food, from big fish and meat to home-cooked side dishes, as much or as little as one wants. But for authentic Shandong people, the most suitable thing to be rolled into a pancake seems to be green onions. Shandong people attach great importance to the texture and taste of pancakes. Pancakes are sweet in the mouth, but they are a challenge to people's bite force. The evolution of pancake rolls has been wonderful, 1,700 kilometers south, the spring rolls of Chaozhou, Guangdong, are rolled and pulled quickly, with green beans on the side, white onions, dried shrimps and fish sauce, and the skin is crispy after deep-frying, and the inside is soft and waxy. Further 1,600 kilometers to the west, Silk Wawa is a favorite of girls in Guiyang. It has hot and cooked noodles and is small in size, but can hold 20 kinds of vegetarian dishes and 4 spoons of water for dipping. From the form to the content, from the spirit to the action, the changes in the rolls are endless. This seems to be a self-guided journey of food, but tracing back to its origin, its evolution is ultimately inseparable from the flow and migration of people.

In a stream on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, people ranging from elderly people over seventy years old to children under ten years old turn over every stone at the bottom of the stream, taking the trouble to find a magical delicious food. . In the most remote village in southeastern Guizhou Province, Li Jianying, a Miao girl, is waiting for a happy moment. This is the first time her parents have returned home in half a year. Now, the working girl next to the assembly line has transformed into a Miao mother again. The rice flowers were in full bloom and there was no time to rest. Yu Gaoli was going to make pickled fish for the whole family. To eat pickled fish, he first made sweet rice. Wash the glutinous rice and steam it on the stove. When the glutinous rice is cooked, add distiller's yeast to ferment it. When the carp is full of rice flowers, it is the fattest and sweetest time. Rather than catching food, it is more like an outdoor parent-child game. The internal organs of the rice flower fish are cut off, placed neatly on the stove, and smoked over a weak charcoal fire overnight. Now it needs to be dried and fermented with the help of air and wind, so that the fish can be combined to create a special flavor. Glutinous rice is covered with mycelium, and the mold produces various enzymes to hydrolyze starch into sugar, ultimately resulting in a refreshing sweet and sour taste. Sweet rice is mixed with salt and chili and stuffed into the belly of the fish. The rice flower fish can be eaten directly, or steamed or fried. No matter which method is used, the charming sweet and sour taste of the pickled fish and glutinous rice cannot be concealed. But the most attractive ingredients lie beneath the water. Every August, everyone in Qiaogang Village, young and old, goes out to hunt for the same thing, rockfish, the most critical ingredient for making Leishan fish sauce, which is unexpectedly delicious. Fish sauce can only be made once a year. You must use the freshest chili peppers, the best are two gold bars, and fresh and tender ginger, which is mainly used to remove the fishy smell. Ginger, also known as mountain pepper, is a unique ingredient in the southwest region. It has a rich and mysterious aroma. A large amount of salt is used to preserve the freshness and enhance the flavor. The ingredients are mixed and stirred, then put into a jar and sealed, and the deliciousness slowly brews. Yu Gaoli and his wife work in a garment factory in Guangdong. They returned home this time because their eight acres of corn are in harvest season. They are the main labor force in the family. In addition to house repairs and other chores, the couple can reunite with their families for half a day. month's time. Half a month is also the cycle for making fish sauce. Lactic acid bacteria and yeast promote the generation of aroma, and volatile organic acids breed the unique sour taste of fish sauce. This is how the Miao family's most proud condiment is made. A spoonful of fish sauce is enough to turn the most ordinary ingredients into something sour. This is the most delicious reunion of the year and is destined to be a dinner with mixed emotions. In rural China, 61 million children, equivalent to the entire population of the UK, are growing up without their parents. They are known as left-behind children. Li Jianying and his brother prepared a small jar of fish sauce for their parents. At five o'clock in the morning, it was time to say goodbye. A taste of hometown will be taken to Zhongshan, Guangdong, 1,000 kilometers away. Maybe one day, it will reappear in a foreign country in a new form.

For thousands of years, food has been migrating and changing with the footsteps of people. No matter how far you go, there is only the smell of hometown in your mind, familiar and stubborn. It is like a taste positioning system, one end is locked to a foreign place thousands of miles away, and the other end is always tied to the hometown deep in memory. . After 40 years of absence, overseas Chinese Cheng Shikun returned to his hometown to pay homage grandly, completing his return to his family. Here, entertaining neighbors is called setting the table, and any important event can only be formally announced and established by setting the table. A homecoming banquet exhausts all the skills of a famous country chef, reconnecting acquaintances and old relationships that have been interrupted for decades and instantly bringing everything back to the past. In the past few decades, Cheng Shikun worked on a farm in the United States. This time the old man decided to return to his hometown to settle down. What called him was not only family affection, but also a familiar smell. In Quanzhou, among Chinese in Fujian, Taiwan, and even Southeast Asia, this flavor is called ancient flavor. The youth has turned gray and his hometown has changed, but all the old flavors remain fresh. There is a famous specialty product in the sandy land on the seaside of Daxia Village. They are not amazing in appearance but almost all of them are exported overseas. The water content of sandy radish is close to 90%. It is tender and smooth in the mouth and has no sense of fiber. The pork is divided into eight parts fat and two parts lean, preferably with the skin on. Cut it into small pieces and cook it with mushrooms, oysters and dried shrimps.

The richness of the meat, the sweetness of the radish, and the plumpness of the rice grains, this is the radish rice that Quanzhou people can’t stop eating, a simple and rich staple food. Half a lifetime of hard work has brought about a rich family fortune and a family full of children and grandchildren. In the final analysis, the starting point and the end point of the journey of a lifetime are where home is. This is a belief held by the Chinese people for thousands of years. It is simple but powerful. At Gansu Shandan Ranch, Lao Tan and his wife were preparing to head to the next stop, another journey of thousands of miles. In Guyuan, Ningxia, wheat customers who returned to their hometown began to harvest their own wheat. In the East China Sea, the couple's boat weighed anchor again, carrying the hope of harvest. This is a China that is undergoing drastic changes. People and food are moving faster than ever. No matter how hurried their footsteps are, no matter how involuntary the gatherings and separations, joys and sorrows come, there is always a taste, in its own way, three times a day. , on the tip of the tongue, reminds us to recognize where we are going tomorrow and never forget where we came from yesterday.