The Barbecue King of the Great Song

After graduating with a master's degree and delivering food for a whole year, Lin Xiaotian packed up and went home, spending half a year learning the craft at his father's barbecue stall. Waking up, he became a poor scholar in Daliu Village on the outskirts of Gaoyou City in the second year of Zhiping of the Northern Song Dynasty. His father died early, his eldest brother married into another family, his mother made a living by needlework, and the family was so poor they could barely keep the pot boiling. He failed the imperial exams, his home was bare, and all he had left was the skill of roasting pork kidneys etched into his bones. At the Gaoyou docks, there were three thousand coolies who, after a hard day's work, craved a cheap and satisfying hot meal. He borrowed five taels of usurious loans, designed a grill, prepared seasonings, and adjusted the heat, setting up a barbecue stall by the canal with three half-grown boys. The seven-tenths done large knife pork kidneys, with twenty spices in three layers, made the entire canal fragrant with his skewers, earning him the title "Food God Descended to Earth" from the coolies. Pork kidneys for eight wen, pork belly for ten wen, pork liver for two wen—half profit, not cheating the poor. This is the legend of Wang Tiezhu's barbecue stall in the Great Song Dynasty. The imperial exams were the path to officialdom, while street commerce was the foundation for survival. Walking both paths, he lay low as a scholar, profited with ruthless methods, and broke new ground with a millennium of insight. From a dock barbecue stall to the imperial court examinations, he carved his own path in the Northern Song.