Literary tastes

"Each dessert has been designed according to the novel, and all the recipes will be easy for anyone to follow and require no complex skills," says Luo.

For Jia's lotus soup, Luo uses honeydew melon, lotus leaf, sago and rice, and employs a simple molecular gastronomy trick to make it work perfectly.

The rice porridge is cooked with lotus leaves before being rolled into balls, laid out on a bed of honeydew melon puree, and topped with marsh pennywort - an aquatic herb that resembles tiny lotus leaves. The porridge balls explode in the mouth to leave a fresh taste of summer.

Luo believes that beautiful things have souls.

"Good food not only awakens our taste buds, it also reminds us of fond memories," the 36-year-old says.

"People in ancient times regarded food more as an art form. So when I designed the soup dessert, I asked myself 'How can I be creative and make this special?'."