Su Wan looked at their backs, then raised her head slightly, just in time to meet the eyes of the officer who came out of the room. There was helplessness in his eyes, but it only flashed by, and the emotion was not caught by many people.

This forty-something chief of the Imperial Food Department is obviously not an ordinary person.

Su Wan roughly understood what happened.

There are two paths for cooks with good cooking skills in the palace.

Ichijo worked as a female official and continued to cook for ordinary palace servants.

Another way is to be recruited to the small kitchen by the nobles in the inner palace because of his excellent cooking skills.

In the eyes of the female official who resigned, the latter was more respectable.

But in the eyes of their superiors, being a female official is better than being a palace maid or a slave, so there is a deep reluctance in their eyes.

The chief of the Imperial Food Department quickly calmed down, and with a smile on his face, he began this year's selection of young palace maids for the Imperial Food Department.

What happened just now didn't bother her. If you can persuade someone about something, then you should. If you can't persuade them, then that's fine.

Jiang Hongye was not the first woman to leave her. Everyone has their own destiny.

Four deputy ministers of the Imperial Food Department, each with fifteen palace maids, stood in the courtyard of the Imperial Kitchen.

Every two years, the palace would recruit a group of young palace maids, and then release a group of palace maids who had reached a certain age.

These sixty young palace maids will be the fresh blood of the Imperial Food Department and will be added to the four dining rooms of the department.

The official office of the Shangshisi was called Shangshenjian. On weekdays, the chief of the Shangshisi and his subordinates worked here.

There are four departments under the Shangshisi, which can be understood as the canteen for the palace staff.

They are the South Kitchen, North Kitchen, West Kitchen and Miscellaneous Storehouse.

The first three are easy to understand, and you can tell from the names that these kitchens are located in different locations of the palace, making it convenient for palace people nearby to go there to eat.

The "zaliku" at the back refers to the place where wine making, desserts, ice storage, etc. are all managed. It is a relatively miscellaneous place.

Except for the special miscellaneous warehouse, the importance of these kitchens is also ranked as above.

The Southern Kitchen has the largest number of staff and is responsible for preparing most of the meals for the palace maids.

Next is the north kitchen.

The last one is the West Kitchen. Because the West Kitchen is on the west side of the entire imperial palace, the government offices here are not very important, and it is also close to the cold palace that has been sealed off for a long time, so the West Kitchen is the worst.

After introducing the four places of the Shangshi Department, the female official introduced the managers of the four departments.

The main person in charge of these four places is the deputy Shangshi Cheng under the chief of Shangshisi.

One of the deputy chancellors who just came to pick up Su Wan and the others was the manager of the South Kitchen, and everyone called her the Deputy Female Official of the South Chancellor.

This position will usually take over from the head of the Shangshi Department. As long as the head retires, the position will be hers.

So she has the most people fawning over her.

Su Wan looked at the south kitchen, the north kitchen, the west kitchen, and the miscellaneous storehouse.

Only the steward of the west kitchen was the least popular and the gloomiest.

After the introduction, it’s time to divide the people.

Because these sixty are not ordinary palace maids, the superiors know what they can do and what they should do.

At this time, just call out your name and assign you to the different dining rooms.

Among them, Li Rongrong, who was in the same car with Su Wan, was assigned to work under her aunt Nan Cheng as she wished.

Officially became a palace maid in the Southern Kitchen.

Seeing the happy expression on her face, I knew that I had got what I wanted.

After all, it is the South Kitchen, the best and most promising place in the Shangshi Department.

When the names were finally read, only a few short and young palace maids were left.

Su Wan was naturally among them.

Deputy Prime Minister Xi rolled his eyes. Every year she raised batch after batch of children just like raising babies.

I know that their west kitchen is in a remote area and the government office next to it is not important, but I can't always pick little kids who can't even stand steadily.

How can they cook if they don’t even have the strength?

Cooking is also hard work.

But Deputy Prime Minister Xi knew very well that, firstly, the palace was short of manpower, and secondly, these short kids would easily offend the nobles if they went to the South and North Kitchens.

If they offended anyone, their superiors would have to apologize.

So after a long time, the superiors simply threw the kids into her care. At least they were on the side and were less likely to make big mistakes.

She can't just take good care of the babies and then come back to pick someone else, right?

All those who could cook were picked away, and she didn't want to mention those who were left, as their cooking skills were almost the same as hers.

Su Wan and the other dwarfs all followed behind Deputy Prime Minister Xi, who had a sullen face. Among them, Su Wan was particularly small.

She was young to begin with, and had lived in the Su family with hunger and fullness, so she looked skinny and small.

As they walked, the head of the Imperial Food Department behind them was helpless and ordered the female official beside him, "Send more food to the western kitchen. How could you bear to send such a young child here?"

The palace is both heaven and hell.

For the nobles, it is hard to tell when they will be able to rise to the top overnight, and for the common people, who knows if they will die quietly in a dry well.

But it’s hard to say, the above matters have nothing to do with them.

They just need to prepare the meals for the palace and fulfill their duties.

Su Wan didn't know any of this. She just followed the deputy prime minister of the western kitchen. Beside the deputy prime minister were the left and right managers of the western kitchen. The two of them looked quite kind and they deliberately slowed down their pace so that the ten little palace maids could keep up.

This year, there are a total of sixty palace maids who entered the Imperial Food Department, divided into four places, with twenty in the South Kitchen and the North Kitchen, and only ten in the remaining Miscellaneous Kitchen and the West Kitchen.

It’s okay if their libraries are different.

The Western Kitchen had the least number of people this time, not to mention the Imperial Food Department, even the four departments and six bureaus in the palace had heard about it.

So all the way from the Shangshi Department through the long palace road, and then many twists and turns to the west side of the palace from the east side, he met many palace servants on the way, and when they saw Deputy Prime Minister Xi, they either laughed at him or sympathized with him.

Anyway, both expressions make people angry.

Seeing Deputy Prime Minister Xi's face getting darker and darker, some of the new palace maids were almost scared to tears.

After walking for about an hour, Su Wan felt that she could no longer hold on, and finally reached the destination.

Looking at the three big words "West Kitchen", we've finally arrived!

Fortunately, I had some cakes on the way here, otherwise I would not have been able to hold on.

These young palace maids had set out in the morning and it was already afternoon, and everyone was covered in dust and dirt.

Deputy Prime Minister Xi did not make things difficult for them. He asked the officer to take them to wash, eat, rest, and change clothes, and wait until the next morning to get up and listen to orders.

The rules in the palace are strict, but they are not really harsh on people.

Not only would the head of the Imperial Household Department forbid it, but the Censorate was also afraid that they had too little to do, so they would definitely report such a thing if they encountered it.

Although the people in the Censorate are annoying, they are still very good in this regard.

When the residences were divided, five palace maids shared one room. After Su Wan washed up, she didn't even eat and almost fell asleep. When she woke up, she saw and heard a lot of noise in the dining room in front of the residence.

After asking, I found out that all the palaces had already come to eat.

The meal time for the palace servants is different from normal. It is basically half an hour earlier than the normal meal time. They also have to take turns to eat, and each palace cannot be short of servants.

Because people eat at off-peak times, each dining room at Shangshisi has long opening hours.

Breakfast is at Yinzheng and lasts until Sishi, which is from 4:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.

Lunch is from noon to 3 p.m., from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Dinner is from 15:00 to 19:00, from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

During this period of time, palace servants would come to eat one after another. In fact, by around seven in the evening, it was already quite late, and some people would eat it as a midnight snack.

The Western Kitchen was responsible for the meals of the five government offices in the palace, but there were only eighty people in the entire Western Kitchen.

It sounds like there are quite a lot of people, but there are only twenty of them who actually cook, and the rest are just helping out and doing odd jobs.

There were a total of 1,500 people in those five government offices.

If it were in modern times, with professional machines and stable boilers, thirty or forty people would be enough to supply a canteen for fifteen hundred people.

But this was in ancient times, there were no professional tools, and everything was done by hand, requiring at least three times the number of people.

In other words, there are fewer staff in the western kitchen, so everyone is very busy.

No wonder Deputy Prime Minister Xi was so unhappy when he saw these short and weak girls. Anyone would be unhappy if they were in his place.

Now that so many people go to the western kitchen, they are having dinner there.

So these little palace maids are left unattended for the time being, and the people in the west kitchen should have already gone to the kitchen to get busy.

At least that's how Su Wan understood it. She has already treated each dining room as a staff canteen.

Their western kitchen is responsible for employee meals in five departments.

She will also be among them in the future. She has signed up for the plain pastry job, which means making pasta for everyone. She can’t wait!

Speaking of which, I haven’t touched a kitchen knife for a long time, and I miss it a little.

Her mother used to run a private kitchen and said that she had a talent for cooking. I wonder if her skills have become rusty in this life.

She will definitely try hard to cook!

It would be best if I could be promoted to a senior palace maid, then I would get ten taels of silver a month!

As long as they save money, her and her aunt's life will be much better after leaving the palace.

Her goal is to become a senior palace maid from a small palace maid just for the monthly salary!

Su Wan had just clenched her fists and set this goal for herself when she heard the palace maids who had entered the palace with her say, "Do you want to go eat? I'm so hungry."

Just as she finished speaking, Su Wan's stomach growled twice.

There were five people in their room, and their stomachs were rumbling all the time.

Su Wan looked at it and said: "You can go and help, but you can only eat after you have helped."

Although they are young and have been told to reassign tasks tomorrow, they cannot just go to the cafeteria to eat. What will their colleagues think?

The other four nodded in unison, apparently agreeing.

They were very curious about what the palace kitchen looked like, and the food must taste delicious.

Anyway, it can be considered the legendary imperial kitchen?

Everyone is full of anticipation. After they finish helping with the work, they must eat a big bowl of rice!

I didn’t eat anything since I entered the palace today!

Su Wan was also curious about the craftsmanship of the palace. It should be pretty good, right?

She is not a picky person and eats anything!

But as soon as he approached the South Kitchen, he heard the young eunuch walking over with a sad face, and the guard next to him had the same expression.

"It's time to eat again."

"If I hadn't been out of money, I would have asked someone to go out of the palace and bring me food."

"How can there be such a disgusting meal in the world?"

"West Kitchen, I will hate you forever."

???

The last cry was very exaggerated, but the meaning was very clear.

So they all think that the food in the western kitchen is particularly bad?

How is this possible!

Su Wan and the other four palace maids were in disbelief. One of the girls even shouted, "Impossible! How can the food in the palace be so bad?"

The little eunuch who had just wailed was refuted loudly, but he was not angry at all. Instead, he looked at them with pity: "You are new here, right? You will know after you try it. I really am not lying to you."

Just give it a try! The ingredients in the palace are so good, how could they be any worse?

Although Su Wan didn't say anything, she thought so in her heart.

But when she walked in and saw the noodles that had already clumped together in the pot, she was so scared that she took a step back.

How could you waste pasta like this!

How can you cook noodles like this?

This is the authentic dark cuisine!