Sunday morning, just past eight, Lin Chen was woken up by his alarm clock. After washing up, he headed to the largest local Chinese supermarket to meet the chef.
"Hey Lin, how did you sleep?"
He recognized the chef's car, and they arrived at about the same time.
"Not bad, the air here is fresh, and the environment is comfortable, perfect for sleeping."
"That's right, big cities have their development, but small cities also have their advantages. You've adapted well after coming to Amiens for a few years."
(The background is fictional, any settings are based on this book and not compared with reality)
After a few pleasantries, a scent suddenly wafted through the air, causing the chef's stomach to rumble immediately.
Lin Chen, with keen insight, stepped aside and raised his hand: "Then please, Mr. Raphael, let me show you the breakfast of Great Xia."
"Oh?"
Chef Raphael immediately showed interest.
"I've heard a lot about Great Xia's renowned breakfast culture. I didn't expect the supermarket to provide breakfast too? It shouldn't be semi-finished products, right?"
"No, it's freshly made every day. Larger Great Xia Supermarkets typically have dedicated dining areas that offer simple meals for the day."
While leading the way, Lin Chen introduced the chef to various products and areas they passed by.
"Although the supermarket breakfast might not taste appealing to us, we're abroad, and having something to eat is already good enough. We can't be picky."
"On the left are snacks and drinks, further up are various dry goods, and on the right, inside the freezer, are various freshly made sushi and coastal foods from Great Xia's southern region, similar to what convenience stores sell, though the taste is just average."
The abundance of diverse and unfamiliar foods mesmerized the chef, almost to the point he couldn't move, picking up each item to smell and examine. When he didn't recognize something, he'd ask Lin Chen.
"Is this noodles? Fried? It's so thin, similar to Thai fried noodles?"
"No, chef, this is rice noodles, a type made from rice, completely different in texture. In Great Xia, food made from flour and rice noodles is categorized into two entirely different categories. There's breakfast over there, so we won't buy these cold ones."
"My heavens, this looks like beef tendon, with a white line running through it. Could it be pig's ear?"
"Yes, chef, this marinated pig's ear in spicy oil is similar to the salad you had yesterday, also a cold dish, crunchy in texture, perfect as a side with drinks or porridge."
It was at most a hundred meters from the supermarket entrance to the dining area, but it took them half an hour to walk through.
Lin Chen was anxious, knowing if they continued shopping at this pace, they'd never finish before dark; hosting was out of the question!
In haste, he pulled the chef away.
"Stop looking, chef. The products here are all the same, they don't change. They're always these, let's eat first."
"Oh right, right, sorry, I was too engrossed."
The chef clearly realized the situation was inappropriate; after all, it was the employee's rest day, and he shouldn't waste too much of their time. While it's nice to have a guide in the supermarket, he could also shop on his own.
If he came across some intriguing ingredients, he could just take a photo, look it up online, or ask Lin another day.
With the mindset of making the most of his visit, Lin Chen decided to order one of everything for breakfast, since the chef was paying. If they couldn't finish, they'd just pack it.
"This is a bun, with pork and shallot filling, a relatively common flavor. Good ones usually have meat juice, and they're fresh out of the oven, very hot."
"This is steamed dumplings, those are fried dumplings, and there's Cantonese-style shrimp dumplings, though those might be semi-finished, along with egg pancakes, scallion pancakes, stuffed pancakes, steamed buns, fried dough sticks, and those are Cantonese-style dim sum..."
Raphael the chef looked at the four full trays of food, his gaze somewhat dazed.
"This... wait, your breakfast actually has so many different kinds?"
"Huh?"
Lin Chen sat down puzzled, "These are just considered the most common breakfast representatives, making up less than one-thousandth of the total. Each city in Great Xia has different dining cultures, and breakfast culture is actually less compared to lunch, dinner, and midnight snacks."
*gulp*
Raphael the chef couldn't help but swallow.
Though he had heard about it before, the sheer number was indeed outrageous, wasn't it?
"Alright, alright, you Great Xia people are really industrious. Look at the stores and supermarkets in our country, almost none open on Sundays; even our restaurant doesn't open on Sundays. Seems like shopping here on Sundays is a good choice."
He casually glanced at the surrounding products earlier and noticed that most things available in Western supermarkets could be found here, and those available here might not be found in other supermarkets.
Most importantly, prices here are not only cheaper, but it's also not a holiday on Sundays!
Sunday for people in the Romantic Country is sacred and inviolable; work is impossible, rest is a must!
People from the Romantic Country have low desires for earning money because taxes are high in most Western countries; the more you earn, the higher the taxes, and the actual take-home pay is about the same. Only a fool would want to work more.
Thus, the appearance of Asians has become an essential part of life for people in these Western countries.
If not for Asians, many locals might have to endure hunger on Sundays.
After letting the chef taste various breakfasts, they circled around the prepared food section, meat section, seafood section, vegetable section, freezer section, and snack section a few times, and the morning was about over.
Raphael the chef, a man in his forties, acted like someone who had never been to a supermarket before, exclaiming every few steps, interested in everything.
Lin Chen didn't forget his challenge; while introducing Great Xia products, he occasionally probed about the local people's acceptance of various animal parts.
However, the answers he got from the chef differed from his expectations. People from culinary countries tend not to be picky eaters, while those from other countries typically are.
French cuisine includes many dishes made from innards.
Butter-fried calf liver, red wine braised beef kidney, pan-seared calf pancreas, pig head meat, beef tongue, pig feet, etc., are all common dishes.
For example, the pig's ear from earlier, the chef immediately recognized it as a common edible part.
Besides French cuisine, Italian, German, and Spanish-Portuguese cuisines also feature these foods, whereas certain large countries' people eat almost nothing.
So here's the problem.
If people in Northern Europe are willing to eat innards, the interview results... He couldn't imagine what range they would fall within.
Furthermore, the East District is a mix of people from all over the world, so concluding anything specific is truly hard to say.
"Hey, wait a minute!"
While thinking, he suddenly had a flash of inspiration and felt like he had grasped onto something.
"The challenge task only requires interviewing twenty people, but it doesn't specify the country, right? If I artificially select the nationality of the interviewees, can I control the results within a certain range?"