Original subtitles

Life always pushes us

to strive forward

regardless of our willingness.

Prepared to depart,

people begin the trudge.

Where they settle,

there is cooking fire.

From the migration of individuals

to the transportation of food ingredients,

from the evolution of cooking methods

to the alternation of human destiny,

the footsteps of human and food

never cease.

In Linzhi, Tibet,

the warm and humid seasonal wind from the Indian Ocean

promotes the rapid growth of plants.

It's again the busiest time of the year

for Baima Zhandui.

“So tiny.â€

Gastrodia elata and Ganoderma lucidum are

the major income sources,

but they will all vanish

one month later.

"It breaks again."

Boasting canyons and snowy mountains

with an elevation difference of seven thousand meters,

Linzhi embraces

the most abundant alpine plants in the world.

Baima's little brother has just graduated from senior middle school,

so Baima has to earn enough money

for him to go to college within a short time.

Before that,

Baima prepares

a special gift for him.

Eighty percent of the forests in Tibet are situated in Linzhi.

Baima Zhandui searches hard for

the honeycomb he discovered several days ago.

Now,

he has to find a way to reach the tree top.

To the local people,

honey is so precious a nutrient

that it deserves their risk.

Though it sounds incredible,

this custom

has been passed down for centuries.

Baima chooses a cane

by which he is connected with the tree.

From now on,

his life is determined by the cane.

Everything seems going on quite well.

One hour passed, Baima has climbed high.

Baima has climbed high.

But there’s still a long way to go.

Worrying about his son,

Baima's father arrives hastily.

Baima dares not to cut the tree with both hands now,

and he slows down significantly.

Don't be afraid,

look up

and hold tight. Take it easy.

Three hours later,

Baima has almost reached the tree crown.

He now

prepares to free himself from the cane.

Forty meters up high on the tree

without any protection,

it is indeed a dangerous walk.

Wild bees are unafraid of human beings.

Baima has learned from the elders

how to produce smoke,

which forces the bees to give up resisting.

To cut open the hollow where the bees hide,

Baima could yield the sweetest honey.

Very delicious and nutritious.

It’s been so long a time since I ate it last time

In a remote and isolated forest,

sweet food is really scarce.

Therefore, honey

is the most precious gift

that Baima could bring for his family.

Sweetness is the purest

and earliest experience of delicacy for mankind.

Honey contains

80% of fructose and glucose.

As the only sweet food for early men,

honey can produce calories

and restore physical strength quickly,

which is crucial to our ancestors.

Unlike the sucrose extracted from sugar cane or sugar beets,

the natural sugar in honey

can be immediately absorbed by human body without hydrolysis.

In Chinese kitchens,

honey can never be replaced

by other sugars

in the preparation of

dishes and desserts.

Surely,

as to the Baima’s, butter honey is their favorite.

For the Tibetan youth,

to obtain honey means

to climb as high as an equivalence of ten floors.

However, for some others,

to gain honey requires an arduous plod over tens of thousands of kilometers.

Canola is just beginning to blossom;

Tan Guangshu has been ready to set out.

Let’s go.

Lao Tan is a professional beekeeper

for more than twenty years.

By this job,

he has managed to raise a son and a daughter.

Every year at Qingming Festival,

Lao Tan, together with his wife Wu Junying,

starts the journey of racing against flowering seasons.

After a full day and night,

the beehives have been transported to Qinling Region, 500 hundred kilometers away.

The flavor of flowers defines that of honey,

thus honey produced in different areas

tastes distinctly.

And that’s the charm of honey as a delicacy.

Qinling is home to the best acacia honey in China.

However, Lao Tan is uneasy,

after all,

beekeeping is dependent upon the climate.

In the middle of April,

the weather changes in a sudden.

Nobody knows

how long the bad weather would last.

Past experience is unreliable.

Last year you went there and got the honey, that's fine.

But it wouldn't be necessarily the same case this year.

You have no idea of

the real situation about the destination.

The road ahead is thus unseen.

Twenty years ago,

Lao Tan promised his bride

to undertake a sweet career with her.

When we were engaged,

Lao Tan told me that beekeeping

was like traveling,

fun and romantic.

After we married, the truth is that

we are always on long and arduous journeys,

full of hardships.

In the days of poor traffic,

people always bring foods that can be preserved for long

when they travel far,

which are generally called Road Dishes (i.e. travel-ready dishes).

Road Dishes not only prevent people from hunger,

but also retain the hometown flavor familiar to their owners.

The seemingly lonely trip

is enlivened

by the the presence of a woman from Sichuan.

Take it easy.

I know I should take things easy.

She has a quick temper and I have a bad temper.

Wu Junying is able to

make soybean pudding (Douhua) with simple tools.

In Sichuan and Chonqing,

Douhua is a popular appetizer and easy to make.

Sichuan husbands are henpecked.

It would be good.

Women are capable.

They hold up half the sky,

maybe more than half.

Without me, you have nothing to eat.

You don't know how to cook.

Whatever you, Tan Guangshu, want to eat, I make it.

Before I get it done, you just praise me falsely.

Sichuan women are indeed capable.

Douhua is in fact ,

a kind of gel

with the proteins in soybeans reorganized

that is, the protein cells are linked

to form a reticular network when heating in brine.

The taste of the soybean pudding is conditional

on the use of strength in squeezing out the water.

In the simple and crude tent,

a wonder takes place.

Now it’s time for seasonings.

With refreshing parsley,

cool mint, crispy deep-fried peanut,

as well as sour and spicy pickled vegetable,

the soybean pudding is ready to be served.

It’s delicious enough for one

to forget all the tiredness of such a long trip.

Lao Tan, have a look,

it is exactly the same as those we made at home.

The soup is so clear.

Well done.

Today's Douhua looks rather nice.

It feels cool to eat it when it is hot,

very very cool.

When you were mad at me in normal times,

you should have been as tender as you are now.

An understanding wife and loving mother.

Understanding and loving.

In Sichuan, basically women are the boss in the family.

Lao Tan is henpecked.

A rich meal

indicates a new start of journey.

All their belongings,

over 10 tons in weight,

must be loaded before dark.

Because of the job,

a beekeeper has to be out

for as long as eleven months every year.

And the couple toiling along the way

guarantees their children a secure life.

Feeling free and unrestrained,

that's the fun of beekeeping.

What we do enjoy is such sense of freedom.

For twenty years,

they are not besieged by the sense of loneliness

during the long and weary journey,

not only because the husband is enduring

and the wife is industrious,

but because

the flavor of hometown accompanies them all the way.

Lao Tan, the beekeeper, and his wife

travel with their bees.

By contrast, another group of people

travel light,

with their hands only.

At the foot of the northern slope of Qinling Mountains,

the wheat is thoroughly ripe.

The popularity of mechanical harvesting

doesn't get in the way of its competitors.

Wheat reaping is an old profession in China,

and wheat reapers challenge the mechanical reapers with their hands

when the wheat is ready to harvest.

As a grain

once revising the history of human civilization,

wheat is most widely planted in the world.

Shanxi, the kingdom of pasta,

embraces various kinds of food with wheat as its main ingredient,

ranging from the most common steamed buns (Mantou),

baked wheat cakes (Guokui), noodles,

Chinese hamburgers (Roujiamo),

pita bread soaked in lamb soup (Yangrou Paomo)

to a great diversity of snacks.

However,

to enjoy the primitive and ancient fragrance of wheat,

one has to wait until the wheat harvest.

Wheat is rich in starch and protein,

and the newly picked wheat

contains the highest amount of sweetness.

You shouldn’t fool the laborers

or treat them unfairly.

Fine, fine.

Good job. Here you are.

Finally got a sight of banknotes. I've earned my bread.

cutting noodles into strips around 3 cm wide.

It is the appropriate width

and the fitting fire

that fully display the bounciness

that is, a roaring fire

generating by the burning firewood in the bellows.

The topping

is a mixture of edible black tree fungus,

carrot, tender bean curd

and stewed minced meat,

which is called Saozi by Shanxi natives.

Chili pepper sprinkled with boiling oil

is a forever loyal partner to noodles.

We are all peasants.

You work outside, just help yourself.

Fine, fine.

Just homely dishes.

That's great. Thanks.

To treat the wheat reaper is a tradition of generations.

A large amount of carbohydrates

can provide and maintain the glycoside

that human body needs after heavy labor.

Nowadays,

reaping by hand has no advantage over mechanical reaping.

The narrow slope is the last battlefield.

Working for ten hours

in a wheat field with an area of about 670 square meters,

a reaper is paid no more than 200 Yuan.

A mechanical reaper costs at most 100 yuan.

That's impossible.

You want 200.

The mechanical reaper is a machine.

You fill it up and it runs around.

Only men will reap in handfuls.

But you ask a sky-high price.

You should know,

no one would pay that much at all.

Make money,

buy some gift for the kids

and pay back the money borrowed.

Then

spend the extra cash

on foods,

drinks

or something else.

Happy enough.

As to this harvest time, they have worked for over ten days

yet earned less than 1000 Yuan.

Wheat reapers no longer belong to this age

in which only efficiency counts.

Wan Maquan and his fellows

may be the last professional wheat reapers in China.

Wheat-reaping, an old profession with a long history,

is gradually diminishing under the attack of machine reapers.

Foods

may come from

remote seas or mountains.

Since long time ago,

people have changed

from living by hunting to living by gathering,

with only one exception.

The ocean

is the last hunting field of mankind.

It is predicted by some scientists

that fishes in the ocean will be entirely consumed

that the days of living by the sea

could last simply 10 more years.

East China Sea celebrates its opening day of fishing season

after a three-month fishing ban.

This kind of small boat is called mom-and-pop boat.

It functions as the feet of fishermen,

Located along the coastline of Eastern Zhejiang,

Sanmen Gulf was once abundant in fish resources.

As the 15th day of the month in the Chinese calendar comes near,

so does a spring tide.

Yang's wife is weak

and begins to feel seasick.

Whenever they go to sea,

the husband is responsible for fishing

as well as all the chores, such as lighting cooking fire and preparing dinners,

and dried noodles cooked in boiling water,

they have a simple supper.

After that, there would be 6 hours' hard work.

The net has been under water

for twenty hours

before they anchor and draw it in.

It is rather disappointing

when the net is pulled out of the water,

with the sole reward, a pomfret,

escaping .

Six hours have passed,

but no fish is caught.

Fortunately, their efforts yield other species of seafood.

The ocean again shows its generosity.

Our lives depend on this boat.

Without the ocean,

is the fruit of a full day and night's hard work.

Within ten hours,

these sea crabs will be served in the restaurants in metropolis.

To obtain food ingredients

requires unusual toil and patience.

The rule also applies to acquiring food in mountains.

Rao Changqing still gets nothing

after a half day's search.

In order to gather a special fungus,

this old man has been waiting for eight months.

Now is the time for harvest.

In the depth of the fault zone of the green mountains,

with moisture-laden air accumulating at an altitude of 2400 meters,

there is a precious food ingredient.

Little flower mushroom (Xiaohuagu),

the king of shiitake mushrooms,

is a breed of fungus growing on decaying trees.

Nowadays,

shiitake mushrooms are cultivatable

with a very nice appearance.

But Rao knows clearly

that the cultivated ones

are not the first-class delicacy.

The wild mushroom

doesn't have good appearance

and color.

But it is more nutritious

and tastes better.Very delicious.

Flower mushrooms grow very slowly

at low temperatures and thus become fleshy.

The sharp temperature differences between day and night

results in the flower-like cracking of their umbrella-shaped caps

The birth of little flowery mushrooms

is attributed to the various coincidences

between heaven and earth.

Fresh flower mushrooms contain 90% of water.

There's a secret hidden in the drying process.

Cultivated black mushrooms are dried

in the charcoal burning house.

As a matter of fact,

the flavor of fresh mushrooms is far less fragrant than the dried ones.

The mystery lies in

that mushrooms would produce lots of guanylic acid salts

when dried,

which bring about the strong delicate flavor.

Therefore,

only shiitake mushrooms that have been dried

can really live up to their Chinese name "Xianggu", which means "fragrant mushrooms" literally.

As for the wild flower mushrooms,

Rao prefers the most primitive way of drying.

To vaporize the water

in the fleshy wild flower mushrooms

by natural powers from the sun and wind,

the delicate flavor accumulates bit by bit.

Compared with the cultivated mushrooms,

wild flower mushrooms don't have a good look

and thus can hardly sell at a good price,

therefore Rao Changqing decides

to keep these delicacies for his family.

Wherever they live, near mountains or near seas,

people possess delicacies particular to their own family.

Octopus ocellatus

has a poetic Chinese nickname,

Wangchao, meaning "rising tide" literally.

It comes out when the tide is rising

and hides when the tide goes out.

Yang Shilu is skilled at catching octopus ocellatus.

to catch mudskippers, octopus ocellatus and the like.

After that,

we cooked together.

We felt very happy.

When mixed with seasonings,

the collagen in the skin of the octopus

transfers to a natural thickener, oily and dark.

The flesh of the octopus is crispy, bouncy and chewy.

It is a specialty dish that the fishermen in East China Sea

are proud to serve.

However,

the favorite delicacy of Yang's daughter

still hides on the beach.

Mudskipper

is a species of fish that is able to survive on land.

Don't ever think wishfully to catch them,

unless you are willing to spend five years

to acquire a unique skill.

Imagine using a five-meter-long fishing rod

with a six-meter-long fishing line

to catch a mudskipper

which is about 5cm long and lies 10 meters away.

The difficulty and the demand of preciseness

are no less than to shoot a basketball from 20 meters away.

In my teens,

I liked eating mudskippers and octopus ocellatus.

My father didn't know how to catch them at that time.

So he began to learn

and has learnt for many years.

From casting the fishing rod to catching the prey,

it takes only one eighth second.

The high-speed camera helps us

observe the whole process.

Daddy, you are so cool.

Daddy is of course capable.

A couple of mudskippers

make a pot of delicious soup.

The flesh is tender and smooth

while the soup is thick and fragrant.

The mudskipper is also a fabulous flavor enhancer

after it is smoked and roasted above straws

over and over to exude the fish oil

and air-dried

When cooked with other seafood or dishes,

it can enhance the flavor

while preserving the original taste of the food ingredients as much as possible.

Though living alone,

the old man shall treat himself.

The more precious a delicacy is,

the more ordinary it appears.

It is also true

that the harder one works,

the happier one feels.

The transportation of food ingredients is significantly accelerated

thanks to the well-developed logistics and people's insatiable appetite

For instance, abalones are transported from Dongshan to Shanghai,

groupers from Zhuhai to Chengdu,

vegetables from Guangxi to Beijing,

and fungi from Kunming to Xinjiang.

Human are no longer the only ones

that are hurrying on the road,

for food is also occupied with traveling and distributing,

with its forms and flavors evolving

in the process of transporting.

This large round pan

with a two-meter diameter

is called Aozi by the local people.

It is used to make pancakes,

an iconic staple food to Shandong natives.

However,

if one wants to appreciate the primitive craft of pancake making,

one must trace back to the place nearest to the nature.

With summer at its height,

there is plenty of rain.

Qimeng Mountain enters the most humid season.

Grandpa has built an earth stove,

on which the large round pan Aozi is put.

They are the tools to make Shandong Pancakes.

Brush it properly.

Do it right

and make it smooth.

Women live in ease comfort

while men live hard.

Men are born to do the heavy work.

I have bad legs,

or else

I will do it myself.

I have been working for her all my lifetime yet rewarded with nothing.

The main ingredient of Shandong Pancake

is sweet potato flour.

Surely,

you can also use flour made from grains,

like soybean,

wheat,

sorghum and corn.

In the depth of Meng Mountain,

there lies Chunshugou Village,

where the old fashion of pancake making is retained tenaciously.

Today is grandma's birthday.

Xiaohui and other family members have been busy these days.

The paste spread evenly

on the heated pan

takes shape quickly.

The vapor dispersing,

a plain fragrance unique to the grains

floats in the air.

A good control of the heat is extremely vital,

for the pancake would be burnt over high heat

or become wet and sticky over low heat.

With over sixty years of experience,

Grandma is the absolute expert of pancake making.

She has an excellent control of the fire.

The pancakes are crisp and delicious when they are just made,

and become soft and bouncy gradually

when they are completely cooled.

Today,

a pancake can wrap almost all kinds of food

fish, meat,

vegetables and the like.

It caters to

the different needs of people.

As to Shandong natives,

scallion seems to be

the most favorable ingredient to be rolled in.

In addition to the enduring fragrance,

the texture and taste of Shandong pancakes

are highly valued,

which nevertheless poses a challenge to the teeth.

The evolution of pancake rolls is fantastic along the way.

1700 kilometers away to the south,

in Chaozhou, Guangdong, there are Spring Rolls.

By throwing, kneading, lifting and pulling the dough in quick succession,

a wrapper is ready for wrapping the fillings.

The fillings are a mixture of mung beans split in halves

and chopped spring onion

seasoned with fish sauce.

After deep-fried, the wrapper becomes golden brown and crispy,

while the fillings are soft and sticky.

Another 1600 kilometers away to the west is Guiyang.

There, Siwawa, a kind of pancake roll wrapped with various kinds of shredded vegetables, is the favorite of the local girls.

Though the cooked dough

looks small,

it can wrap twenty kinds of vegetables

and four spoons of sauces after seared.

The forms and fillings of pancake rolls

are so diverse

that one cannot help to exclaim their infinite variety.

It seems as if foods travel by themselves,

but to get to the bottom of their evolution,

one may find that it is an inevitable result of

the mobility and migration of mankind.

In a stream running through Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau,

in search of a marvelous delicacy,

the aged over 70 years old

and the kids less than 10 years old alike

are tirelessly turning the rocks in the stream bottom

one by one.

In the remotest village of Southeastern Guizhou Province,

Li Jianying, a Miao girl,

is waiting for a happy moment.

Happy

Her parents, who have been away for half a year, are coming back.

Now,

Yu Gaoli is no longer the woman working at a factory,

but a genuine Miao mother.

It is the flowering time of rice.

With no time to rest,

Yu Gaoli prepares to produce cured fish for the family.

Before that, Yu has to make sweet fermented rice.

With the glutinous rice rinsed

and steamed over the stove

until it is cooked through,

Yu ferments it with yeast.

The carp of this season are most fleshy and sweetest

for they are well fed on rice flowers.

It is not so much a hunt for food ingredients

as an outdoor parent-child game.

The rice flower carp with the internal organs removed

are set neatly on the stove.

Smoked over a light charcoal fire for one night,

the carp are continued

to get dried and fermented

through the action of air and wind,

which creates a unique flavor.

Covered with mildew,

which produces various sorts of ferments

that hydrolyze starch into sugar,

the glutinous rice eventually turns sweetly sour.

Stuffed with the mixture of

sweet fermented rice, salt and chili,

rice flower carp

can be eaten raw,

steamed or fried.

Whatever cooking method is used,

there is no way

to hide the charming sourly sweetness

of the cured carp stuffed with glutinous rice.

The most inviting food ingredient,

nevertheless, hides in the stream bottom.

Every year in August,

everyone in Qiaogang Village, old and young alike,

all sets out

to catch the same creature,

Chinese hillstream loach,

the most important ingredient of an extraordinary delicacy,

Leishan fish sauce.

People can only make Leishan fish sauce once a year.

The freshest chili is a must,

with cayenne pepper the best choice.

Ginger is fresh, large and tender,

mainly used to eliminate the smell of fish.

Mountain pepper,

a seasoning peculiar to Southeastern China,

helps to preserve the freshness and enhance the taste.

With all the ingredients mixed

and sealed in jars,

the delicacy is brewing.

Yu Gaoli and her husband

are workers in a factory in Guagndong.

They own about 1.3 acres of corn field.

As the mainstay of the family,

they return home to harvest the corns

that are ready to pick.

Besides that, they will repair the house,

so the couple can stay

with other family members for half a month.

Half a month is also the cycle time of making fish sauce.

Lactic acid bacteria and yeast

promote the generation of fragrance.

Volatile organic acids

produce the sourness proper to the fish sauce.

The flavoring that the Miao family most proud of

is thus bred.

A spoon of fish sauce

is enough to make the most common food ingredients

become unexpectedly sourly moving.

It is the gathering of top delicacies in a year.

However, it is also destined

to be a dinner of mixed feelings.

I'm very happy that my parents come back,

but I know they have to leave.

I cannot ask them to stay.

In China,

61 million children in rural areas

grow up without their parents.

They are called left-behind children,

and the number is equal to the total population of UK.

Li Jianying and her elder brother prepare

a small jar of fish sauce for their parents.

Five o'clock in the morning,

it's time to say goodbye.

Don't miss us.

Eat more food.

Keep in mind.

See you.

A jar of hometown flavor

will be taken to Zhongshan, Guangdong,

1000 kilometers away.

Perhaps one day,

it will reappear in another place

with a new form.

For thousands of years,

foods migrate

and develop ceaselessly

after the footsteps of mankind.

No matter how far people travel,

the familiar flavor of hometown

stubbornly exists

in their mind.

It is like a taste positioning system,

with one end connected to a distant foreign land,

the other end permanently linked

with the hometown deep in one's memory.

Cheng Shikun, an overseas Chinese,

left his hometown forty years ago and have come back now.

The grand worship

declares his return to the clan.

In his hometown,

giving a banquet for the neighbors is called Baizhuo,

and only by Baizhuo

can any declaration of events

be considered effective.

A welcome back banquet

fully displays the culinary skills of well-known cooks in the village.

The reunion of acquaintances and old friends

that have lost contact for decades

makes everything go back to the way it was before.

In the past decades,

Cheng Shikun worked in an American farm.

His decision to return to hometown and settle down

is owing to

his love for the family

as well as the familiar hometown flavor.

Among people from Quanzhou

and the wider Fujian Province,

from Taiwan

or even among overseas Chinese in Southeastern Asia,

this flavor is known as flavor of the past.

I ate it quite often when I was child,

but no more after I went to America.

The once young man turns grey-haired

and the hometown has assumed a new look,

yet flavors of the past remain unchanged.

In the sandy soils along the seashores of Daxia Village,

a renowned specialty grows.

That is radish.

Though the radishes look ordinary,

almost all of them are planted for exportation.

Containing nearly 90% of water,

radishes possess

a tender and silky taste.

Pork belly,

better with skin,

is cut into one-inch sections

and stewed with shiitake mushrooms, oysters

and dried shrimps.

The fatness of flesh,

sweetness of radishes

and fullness of rice together

make up the simple yet rich staple food "Rice with Radish",

which is so inviting

that Quanzhou natives cannot help to eat again and again.

Spending half his life in making a living away from home,

Cheng Shikun is blessed with

prosperity and descendants.

On the journey through life,

we set out from the place in which our home locates,

and ultimately we would return to the same place.

That's the faith that the Chinese hold on to for thousands of year.

It is simple, yet powerful.

At Shandan Horse Ranch, Gangsu Province,

Lao Tan and his wife are ready to proceed to the next station,

another trudge of thousands of meters.

In Guyuan, Ningxia,

wheat reapers have returned to their villages

and start to reap wheat in their own field.

On East China Sea,

with the anchor hove up,

the pop-and-mom boat carrying hopes for gains sets sail again.

In the present China, a country undergoing dramatic changes,

people and foods move faster

than any other time in history.

No matter how hurried their footsteps are,

whether it is a gathering or a parting, happy or sad,

willing or not,

there is always a kind of flavor

that reminds us,

in a unique way

three times a day,

to see the road ahead clearly

and never to forget

where we come from.

Chinese cuisine is

mystical

and difficult to copy.

Culinary skills

are imparted orally,

and one has to apprehend them by feeling and thinking.

The disperation of traditional foods

and disappearance of the ancient production method

are the difficulty

challenging both masters of different cuisine schools and experts from the countryside.

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