"Although the methods for judging the quality of fruits and vegetables vary depending on the produce itself, there is still a universal and highly effective system."
Standing on the thick, solid earth and looking out over the garden full of fruits and vegetables, Liu Anqing spoke in a deep, steady voice.
"I call this system the Five Methods of Produce Evaluation. There are five parts to it, summed up in five words: look, smell, ask, cut, and weigh.
"What 'look' means is checking the color. Ingredients of fine quality will have vivid, full, lustrous color, showing the natural mature coloration proper to that particular fruit or vegetable.
"Leafy greens should be a rich emerald green. Tomatoes should be evenly red. Cucumbers should be a bright green. Every ingredient has its own mature coloration, and these are all things written in books.
"Take the sour tomato you two just ate, for example. On the surface, it was indeed red, and didn't look very different from a ripe tomato.
"But when I came over, I looked carefully at the tomato you threw away. At the bottom—meaning the end with the stem—the red color hadn't fully developed.
"That part is called the shoulder of the fruit. If there is still green remaining there, then even if the rest of the tomato has turned red, it is almost certain that the tomato will be sour.
"That's because tomatoes ripen from the inside outward, and the chlorophyll in the shoulder breaks down more slowly. Under normal circumstances, it is the last part to turn red.
"Now this one is sweet. Its skin has a natural matte waxy layer, and near the stem it gives off a rich, distinctive fresh tomato aroma.
"And as a side note, if you lift a sour tomato to your nose, you can hardly smell much fragrance at all. Even if there is any, it'll just be a grassy, unripe smell, which is very easy to identify."
He plucked a large, naturally drooping red tomato from the vine and tossed it to the three little ones watching at his side, letting them taste it for themselves.
"As long as you understand the characteristics of the plant, and then apply the methods I've taught you, it becomes easy to distinguish good ingredients from bad ones.
"Even if you run into a completely unfamiliar plant, once you've suffered through it once, you'll understand."
The key lay in applying knowledge to reality.
Information on its own was nothing more than words in a book. No matter how much of it one memorized, it remained something hollow. Only when it was truly put into practice did it become a useful skill for a chef.
As he spoke, Liu Anqing glanced toward Fang Ye in the distance. The moment Fang Ye got the tomato, he bit straight into it, juice smearing all over his little face, though it did nothing to hide the amazement in his eyes.
"My turn, my turn!"
Beside him, Alice Nakiri chirped excitedly and leaned her head forward on her own. She bit into the very spot Fang Ye had already bitten, and her eyes immediately lit up.
"So sweet!"
"I actually think it's a little too sweet. A better tomato flavor comes from a balance between sweetness and acidity."
Looking at the tomato that Fang Ye and Alice had each bitten once, Erina Nakiri's face showed a faintly conflicted trace of distaste—but she still bit into it anyway.
As she tasted the sweetness, which she felt was a little excessive, her brows drew together slightly.
"Huh? But I think sweeter tastes better!"
Hearing Erina's critical opinion, Alice protested at once.
"Then you might as well just eat candy, since that's sweet too. A tomato ought to taste like a tomato!"
Erina pouted.
"That's unexpectedly old-fashioned of you."
Hearing the two of them argue, Fang Ye rubbed his chin and commented like a little grown-up.
"Haha, both sweet tomatoes and sweet-and-sour tomatoes have their own uses. Even unripe sour tomatoes have dishes where they're exactly what you want.
"When a sour tomato is simmered for a long time, its acidity softens and deepens, and it seeps into the other ingredients, serving both to elevate flavor and cut richness.
"Take the famous Russian dish borscht, for example. The acidity of sour tomatoes is simmered together with beetroot, beef, cabbage, and the rest, creating that layered combination of sweet, sour, salty, and savory. That's exactly what makes borscht what it is!"
Listening to the three children's discussion, Liu Anqing couldn't help laughing before giving his own view.
Every ingredient had its purpose from the moment it came into being. Even a disliked sour tomato could become an essential flavor-building component in another dish.
So there was no absolute standard for whether an ingredient was "good" or "bad." What mattered was the needs of the dish itself. If what you needed was a sour tomato, then a sour tomato was a top-grade ingredient.
The day the three of them fully understood the meaning of ingredients and could freely apply that understanding across different dishes would be the day their abilities made an epic leap forward.
"So complicated."
"It really is... kind of profound."
After hearing Liu Anqing's explanation, both Erina and Alice pressed their lips together, troubled expressions on their faces, while Fang Ye beside them fell into thought.
For someone with an adult mind, what Liu Anqing said was actually very easy to understand.
It was like assigning people with different abilities to the jobs best suited to them, so that each person could create their greatest possible value.
For workers, that required a boss with a discerning eye. For ingredients, it required a chef who understood them and knew how to use them properly.
And at that thought,
a certain realization rose in Fang Ye's heart.
[Detected that the Host has gained a deep insight into the relationship between the essence of ingredients and their culinary applications. Passive skill awakened successfully: Taste-Image Simulation (Purple).]
[Taste-Image Simulation (Purple)]: When the Host sufficiently understands the intrinsic relationship between ingredient characteristics and culinary systems, the Host may construct a complete simulated cooking process within the mind based on existing knowledge. This ability can model the possible compound flavor and texture changes an ingredient may undergo under a specific cooking process. The precision of the simulation is positively correlated with the sharpness of the Host's own five senses.
At the same moment, the system prompt sounded in his head, leaving Fang Ye briefly stunned. Clearly, he had not expected this to awaken a new skill too.
And this skill was linked directly to sensory ability, meaning he did not need to grind it entirely from scratch.
After all, thanks to Liu Anqing occasionally feeding him special-grade dishes over the past two years, Fang Ye's Basic Taste Perception had already reached Minor Mastery.
At most, give it another half year, and it would likely reach perfect mastery—the limit an ordinary person could attain. At that point, who knew? He might unlock an even higher-tier talent and rise straight to the top of life.
Thinking that far, Fang Ye's lips curved upward again, and he turned his gaze once more toward the tomatoes hanging from the vine.
This time, although he was still looking at a tomato, the moment he let his mind drift, classic tomato-based dishes began surfacing in his head one after another—Cod Braised with Tomato, Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry, Tomato-Braised Beef Brisket, and more.
One ingredient after another appeared out of thin air within his mind, gathering into completed dishes.
Among them, Cod Braised with Tomato and Tomato and Egg Stir-Fry were especially vivid, since he had personally watched Liu Anqing prepare them.
As for Tomato-Braised Beef Brisket, he had tasted it in his previous life, but lacked firsthand cooking experience with it, so the simulated image was vague and fuzzy, giving only a rough sense of the result.
"So Taste-Image Simulation really can't create something from nothing. The more complete my own experience and understanding are, the higher the completion level of the dish in the simulation.
"But why can I only sense the taste of the dishes in my head? Is it because my five senses are still too weak? No... more likely it's because I only have Basic Taste Perception for now."
Looking at the dishes in his mind—apparently complete in color, aroma, and flavor—Fang Ye found that he could only grasp their broad taste profiles, lacking the finer layers and subtler details.
Even so, this ability was already outrageous.
It could save him an enormous amount of trial-and-error time during dish development. Even just a rough sense of the flavor direction was enough to tell whether something would be delicious or not.
What's more, the skill still had room to grow.
Once his proficiency increased and his senses developed further, it might someday allow him to perceive finer taste layers—or even simulate a much more complete culinary experience.
With all kinds of thoughts flashing through his mind, Fang Ye shook his head and pulled himself back to the present, continuing to follow Liu Anqing as the old man explained the various ways to judge the quality of fruits and vegetables.
Join here to read ahead.
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Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 110)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
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I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter85)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 60
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 65
From Junkman to Wasteland 50
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 35
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 40
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 37
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