Chapter 404: Destiny Changed by a Dish
Huang Fen is one of the intangible cultural heritage inheritors of Yushan Chicken Tofu.
She has been on television, interviewed by journalists, and featured in various magazines and books.
But these did not make much change to her living situation.
She still runs an ordinary small shop. What she sells is naturally not chicken tofu pudding, but ordinary Sichuan home-cooked dishes. The average price per person is about 20 yuan, and a bowl of garlic sprouts and twice-cooked pork with rice is enough to fill you up.
There is no way, the chicken tofu dish is too expensive, too high-end, and too out of touch with reality.
When she learned it from her biological father, she couldn't help but complain about it -
For this dish, you need to use a two-year-old free-range hen, and only cut off the breast meat;
20 free-range eggs, only the egg whites are used without the yolks; the remaining bones and meat of the hen are all thrown into the soup and boiled for at least 5 hours, and the essence is concentrated in the chicken tofu pudding;
The rest is just waste, which diners won't eat at all.
All in all, the cost of materials alone would be more than 200 yuan.
The common gross profit margin standard in the catering industry is 50%.
In other words, she would have to sell these materials for at least 400 yuan to make a profit.
A pot of chicken tofu pudding can produce about four bowls, which means one bowl costs 100 yuan.
...Who would be stupid enough to spend 100 yuan on a bowl of chicken tofu pudding?
The chicken tofu pudding looks no different from vegetarian tofu pudding made from soybeans!
Actually, some people around me have advised me over the years -
Just use a hen to stew several times the amount of soup, add a little chicken fat to add flavor, and then buy a few dollars of frozen chicken breast from the supermarket, and 1 dollar of ordinary eggs...
The chicken tofu pudding made in this way is sold for 20-30 yuan per serving, and is labeled as a national banquet delicacy. In addition, with her reputation as an intangible cultural heritage, many people will definitely be willing to pay for it! But Huang Fen is unwilling to do so.
She has several brothers and sisters in the family, but she is the only one who learned how to make chicken tofu from her father and embarked on this path.
She has her own persistence and is absolutely unwilling to cut corners or do things that are not what she claims to be.
certainly.
Sometimes when she wakes up in the middle of the night and opens her eyes to see her bare house and her shop burdened with heavy rent, she feels regretful.
I thought that if I was willing to be more ruthless and not stick to the ancestral principles, maybe my family would be better off. I could own my own house, open a shop that was completely my own, and my daughter wouldn't have to work outside to earn tuition...
In this way, she regretted it day by day, but persisted day by day.
Until one sunny and ordinary day.
An old friend she hadn't contacted for a long time called her and told her that chicken tofu pudding was going to be popular, and asked her to seize this opportunity and make her chicken tofu pudding bigger and stronger! This was not outrageous, because in recent years, there have been too many special foods that have become popular by chance.
What XX barbecue, what XX spicy hot pot...
It was a trend, and anyone who caught the tail of it could make a lot of money. Many bosses became rich overnight because of it! As a result, there were restaurant owners who specialized in following the trend and then changed to other food when the popularity died down.
Huang Fen was excited at first, but she slowly calmed down and said with a wry smile: "How can there be so many good things falling from the sky? I'd better just sell my rice bowls honestly."
Her old friend knew her concerns and was afraid that a momentary decision would ruin her family.
So I sighed and comforted him, saying it was okay and that selling rice bowls was also good.
But after Huang Fen hung up the phone, she couldn't help thinking about it.
Just then, her daughter came back from school and expressed the same idea as her old friend.
My daughter is studying business administration, so the suggestions she makes need to be more reliable and feasible.
Now not only Huang Fen's husband, but even her father in her hometown who couldn't even lift a spoon heard the news and called her to tell her to seize the opportunity and do it well!
Huang Fen finally made up her mind!
Without investing too much, just buy a batch of free-range old hens and local eggs from your hometown, and the investment is only a few thousand yuan.
As for the shop, I simply painted and cleaned it to make it cleaner, because my daughter said the environment should match the prices.
Finally, we changed to Huang’s Chicken Tofu Pudding, the signature dish of intangible cultural heritage delicacy.
In this way, Huang Fen suppressed her excitement and made her first pot of chicken tofu.
She had already prepared herself for a few days without any customers, but she didn't expect that one hour after opening the store, a young man who was surfing on 8G saw the chicken tofu pudding shop and walked in.
Young man: "Is this the Sichuan chicken tofu pudding you sell? The one where you can eat the chicken but you can't see the chicken?"
Huang Fen nodded repeatedly, then rubbed her hands nervously and asked the other party if he wanted it.
"How much is it?"
"1...128."
When Huang Fen said this, her face turned red, for fear of being scolded.
The young man opened his eyes wide in surprise: "So cheap?"
There is no mistake in the poem, post, content, and read the book on 6, 9, and bar!
Huang Fen felt dizzy after hearing this.
A bowl of chicken tofu pudding for 128 yuan is still cheap? Are young people's perceptions of prices so outrageous nowadays?
Huang Fen didn’t know that this was because the 588 yuan chicken tofu pudding sold by Nanzhi in the variety show was too popular.
So much so that her chicken tofu pudding, which is several times cheaper, is easily accepted by people.
Out of conservative mentality, the young man only ordered a serving of chicken tofu pudding.
Soon, a big bowl of chicken tofu pudding was served.
The young man was so happy that his teeth were not visible: "Wow, this is more substantial than what Sister Zhi made! Well, after all, it is just a substitute, it can't compare to Bai Yueguang..."
Huang Fen didn't understand the young man's strange muttering and just stared at his expression intently.
The young man quickly scooped a spoonful of chicken tofu and put it into his mouth.
His eyes widened:
"Oh my god! So fresh and delicious!"
Huang Fen breathed a sigh of relief.
I felt that at least I didn’t have to withdraw the 128 yuan I had just received.
Well, is this considered a good start? Huang Fen doesn’t know yet, this is not just a good start, but a turning point in her life! The young man who came to her store happened to be a well-known store blogger. After eating her chicken tofu pudding, he casually posted a post online -
"Although Bai Yueguang is irreplaceable, it's still okay to find a substitute occasionally!"
Such a "scumbag" statement quickly attracted a lot of people to agree with it.
Soon, Huang Fen’s Huang’s Chicken Tofu became popular.
It is no exaggeration to say that the shop is packed with customers and is bustling with people!
It’s because the threshold for making chicken tofu is so high that even if someone wants to follow the trend, they will only fail.
There are probably only a handful of people who can really do it well, and they are as insignificant as a drop in the ocean in such a big country.
Huang Fen happens to be one of them.
Afterwards, Huang’s Chicken Tofu Pudding became a local internet-famous food restaurant, and Huang Fen’s story became well-known.
Taste + story, this combination is unbeatable in the catering industry! Huang Fen's store is also constantly expanding and opening branches...
Many years later, Huang Fen realized her midnight fantasy, and even exceeded it.
But looking back today, she is still grateful to Nanzhi for bringing her a turning point in life.