The mother of a gourmet loves leftover dishes.
When it comes to the Chinese interest in food, Xia Zun once summarized it in these two sentences: "We don't eat our parents (two-legged), and we don't eat our beds (four-legged)." Therefore, even a little leftover dish, even if it has been reported in newspapers that many carcinogenic sodium nitrites have already formed, can still be considered delicious by many people.
For example, during winter, almost every Shanghai household would cook a large pot of bamboo shoots stewed with pork. When freshly cooked and served on the table, the meat is just meat, and the bamboo shoots are just bamboo shoots, definitely tasteless. Afterward, each time it is reheated, it tastes better. When the repeated stewing makes the meat lose its shape, and the bamboo shoots absorb enough fatty oil, reaching an "extraordinarily" (Shanghainese, meaning "very") good flavor, the pot of bamboo shoots stewed with pork is also almost finished. Another example is leftover braised fish or braised pork, put in the fridge overnight, the originally rich and oily sauce turns into a refreshing jelly. At this point, a trembling piece of fish or meat jelly becomes more desirable than the fish or meat itself.
An extreme example of liking leftover dishes is Kong Lingyi, the 76th generation descendant of Confucius. He liked to re-cook various leftover dishes until they became mushy before eating them, saying that there was a sour taste that made them delicious. So whenever there was a grand banquet in Qufu, the old master always sent someone with a basin to ask for the leftover dishes. Some families, considering the old master's dignity, were embarrassed to really give him leftovers, so they stir-fried some mixed vegetables to look like leftovers and sent them over. The old master would then become unhappy, saying that without this sour smell, the taste was not authentic.