Wang Zengqi said that the greatest contribution of soybeans to the Chinese people is their ability to make tofu and various soy products.
You see, starting from soybeans with water to grind soymilk, adding brine can point out tofu; and in between you can also get the by-product tofu skin and semi-finished tofu brain; tofu pressed and dried and baked can be made into dried tofu; tofu fermented and stinky becomes stinky tofu; of course, it can also be reprocessed and processed into tofu milk – Westerners call this “mysterious oriental plant cheese”; as for a series of cousin products changed from tofu – oil tofu, thousand sheets and so on is more.
Although the soybean derived from such a lot of offspring, quite “children and grandchildren, endless also” taste, but really will count up, regardless of the visibility of the representative, tofu should be considered the Parents of this large Family deserved. Do not see now tofu all day in the corner of the vegetable market, the price is also block of 80 cents a pound, but do not look down on tofu, really to the ancestors of the eight generations back up, that the origin of the family has a royal lineage.
The “Compendium of Materia Medica” has a cloud: “The law of tofu, started with the Huainan King Liu An.” This Liu An is the authentic grandson of Liu Bang, the Prince of Huainan during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty. Tofu was first documented in the Huainanzi, which was compiled by the king and his assistants.
Of course, there must be a cause and a consequence for Tofu to be associated with the king, who was interested in the art of alchemy while doing a good job as the “promising career” of the King of Huainan, that is, putting together a bunch of messy stuff in the hope of making the Medicine of immortality –By the way, I always thought that in ancient China, which lacked the spirit and results of natural scientific exploration, alchemists could be considered one of the few people who were closer to modern natural scientists – so in the legend, when the ancient chemist, Prince Liu An, in one of his one of his alchemical attempts, after putting soybeans, salt brine and other things into his precious elixir, tofu completed its first meeting with the world, although its identity was not as a Food but as an alchemical by-product.
Let’s assume that if tofu had been born not in Prince Liu’s elixir but in the laboratory of some Western alchemist, then I’m almost certain that the food camp would have lost a great general – the Chinese endless spirit of discovery in food is unmatched by any other country, even France and Italy, also known as the land of food. and Italy. So although tofu was born in Liu’s alchemy room wearing the hat of a by-product of alchemy, the delicious Chinese quickly discovered its great food value and immediately returned it to the glorious ranks of food by “removing its hat and vindicating it.
The easiest way to eat tofu is to mix it, as they say, “small onions mixed with tofu, a green two white”. When I was a child, I seldom bought tofu in the market, and the tofu seller carried a stretcher, and in addition to several large plates of freshly made tofu, there were also tofu skin, dried beans, and so on, walking down the street and hawking. Grandmother heard the sound of hawking and greeted them, and in addition to paying for it, she could also exchange it for soybeans. Half a bowl of soybeans for a large piece of tofu, the conditions are simple, small onions, pineal eggs and so on, drizzled with a little soy sauce mix, is a dish for dinner.
But although the tofu is white, tender and smooth, full of appearance – to take advantage of women called “eat tofu” must be due to this – but in addition to a bean smell inherited from soybeans, itself There is no special fresh taste. The beauty of it is that it can absorb all kinds of flavors, and can be accommodated on the side of various ingredients, to receive all kinds of flavors for their own use.
Yuan Mei in the “Suiyuan food list” of the miscellaneous vegetarian menu, the beginning of the list of Jiang Servant bean curd, Yang Prime Minister bean curd, Zhang Kai bean curd, Qing Yuan bean curd, Hibiscus bean curd, Wang Taishou eight tofu, Cheng Li Wan bean curd, frozen bean curd, shrimp oil bean curd and other nine tofu menu, and these Yuan Mei can not forget the tofu, basically and shrimp, chicken Soup, abalone, mushrooms and other fresh things cooked together.
Nutritionally speaking, tofu is rich in vegetable protein, and in a Time of material scarcity, when meat and fish were rare, tofu became an important source of dietary protein and occupied an important place in national recipes, and there were many different ways to make it.
The most famous one is probably Ma Po Tofu, which is proved to be created by the owner of “Chen Xing Sheng Restaurant” in Chengdu during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, because the owner’s wife had pockmarks on her face and was called Chen Ma Po, and the dish was called Ma Po Tofu after her name.
The poet Feng Jiaji wrote in the late Qing Dynasty in his “Jinsheng Zhuzhi Lyrics”: “Ma Po Chen’s is still famous, the taste of tofu baking is the most exquisite, the curtain by the Wanfu Bridge is moving, and the curtain is moving, and the curtain is selling spring wine to drunken gentlemen”. At that time, most of the people who ate at Chen Xingsheng’s restaurant were laborers, so Ma Po Tofu was heavy on oil and spicy, and it quickly spread, and after several improvements, it became a representative of Sichuan cuisine, popular in the north, south and west.
If Ma Po Tofu belongs to the working people, then Wenshi Tofu is a typical literati dish. The wealthy Yangzhou salt merchants who pushed for the birth of countless Huaiyang dishes have long since moved away from the primary need for fruitfulness in the pursuit of excellence, and Wenshi Tofu is one of them.
It is said to have been created by the monk Wensi of the Tianning Temple in Yangzhou. In addition to the careful selection of ingredients, the dish is especially knife-oriented, with all ingredients finely shredded, including the main ingredient, young tofu. It is said that it is very important to cut all the ingredients into fine julienne strips, including the main ingredient, tender bean curd, which is fragile and hard to handle.
The “China on the Edge of the Tongue” commented that this dish is more about the knife work than the taste. After the ingredients are cut to a base of soup, cooked and simply seasoned to thicken the pot, after the bowl is served, the shreds of various colors dance between the soup, very Chinese ink painting style. Of course, the taste is not bad, salty, smooth, melt in the mouth, can be said “color, aroma, taste, shape” all.
In Zhejiang Zhuji and Jinhua, there is a similar tofu soup, which is called Xishi Tofu in Zhuji and Wu Tofu in Jinhua, but it is not known for its knife work, but for its freshness and taste. In addition to tofu, the ingredients are mostly mushrooms, asparagus, eggs, etc., diced and fried, boiled with stock, added tofu, boiled again and thickened with water starch. In this way, the complicated knife work of shredding is eliminated, and the finished product is not as delicate, but the taste is more delicious and intense. I remember when I was touring Zhuji Wuyi, in a classmate’s house for the first time to eat Xishi tofu, really amazing, other dishes did not care, we first a large pot full of tofu soup to sweep away, the classmate’s mother was happy, and went to do the second pot will come up.
“If there is no tofu, the Life of the Chinese people will be missing a large piece, monks, nuns, vegetarian restaurant masters will all ‘no play'”, Wang Zengqi said this is true, vegetarian vegetarian, most of them are dependent on the bean curd soybean products to change, for how to use A piece of bean curd to turn out a table of rare seafood, temples and nunneries are very vocal. Those with dried bean curd and other soybean products made of vegetarian chicken, vegetarian meat, vegetarian intestines, vegetarian fish and so on, not only realistic appearance, taste is also almost the same, let people breathe amazed.
But Lu Xun, think it is a vegetarian hypocrisy, the heart can not forget to eat meat, to create from the appearance to taste are enough to mess up the real vegetarian chicken, vegetarian meat, vegetarian fish to meet the desire to eat meat, this is to eat a meal can be eaten metaphysically ah. But the temple tofu is really delicious, Hangzhou on the Tianzhu Fa Xi Temple, there are 5 yuan a vegetarian fasting year-round supply, the dishes are extremely simple, is braised tofu, boiled cabbage, extremely simple but the taste is not bad reputation is very good, especially the white rice covered with a spoonful of braised tofu soup, can definitely make people belly satisfaction and return.
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