"Master, there are four dishes for breakfast. Goat's milk congee with honey, to warm the stomach and moisten dryness. Chestnut-flour woven nests with Rose Garden brine, to replenish qi and strengthen the bowels. Pickled melon with golden shreds drizzled in sesame oil, crisp, fragrant, and refreshing. Ham and diced bamboo shoot soup with butter-fried smartweed blossoms, fresh and mellow without being greasy. They're all warming, nourishing, and appetite-opening! Master, eat more slowly! This servant will rub you—don't choke. Here, this servant will feed you a mouthful of pear soup."
"Master, there are eight dishes for lunch. Crystal pork-trotter slices, red-braised mutton square, deer sinew with mountain chicken, wine-lees-steamed mandarin fish, crab roe tofu, sour bamboo shoot and chicken skin soup, Luohan vegetarian stew, and lamb-tripe broth. They're all fine things for nourishing the body, plus hot yellow wine. Ah! This isn't even that many dishes. A great master's meal has to have twenty dishes! They say that official households in Jiangnan have more than thirty dishes in a single meal—Master! The dishes haven't all been served yet, and you've already eaten three bowls of noodles? You ask what noodles these are? This is white flour from Daimyo Prefecture, the chewiest kind. Ah? What are noodles, to be so delicious? Have you never eaten noodles before?"
"Master, dinner is still eight dishes. Smoked duck breast, steamed lamb, winter bamboo shoots braised with shrimp roe, Yunnan ham stuffed into flowering cabbage stalks, crucian carp and shredded radish soup, diced mountain chicken braised in shiitake sauce, stuffed swan, and plum-blossom soup cakes. Supper will be lighter than lunch, with Jizhou Qiulubai Wine to drink. Ah! Master, Qiulubai Wine is sorghum liquor, distilled. Don't drink it so fiercely—you'll get drunk when it goes to your head! Master? Master? Qing'er! Hurry and fetch some Osmanthus