Speaking of tofu, what can't get around is its raw soybean. More than 5,000 years ago, Chinese began cultivating soybeans and listing them as one of the five grains.
Initially, Chinese just steamed soybeans into bean rice to eat, but in a fortuitous incident, tofu was invented by beating it to the ground.
According to the Compendium of Materia Medica, "The method of tofu began with Liu An, the king of Han Huainan. ”
Between 179 and 122 BC, Liu An, the king of Huainan in the Western Han Dynasty, who was keen on the art of immortality, gathered eight warlocks to practice Dan at Bagong Mountain in present-day Huainan City, Anhui Province.
When they used soy milk to cultivate Dan miao, they inadvertently added brine into soy milk, and as a result, Dan was not refined, but the earliest tofu in human history was born.
Huainan Bagong Mountain has "three ancient and one rare", "three ancient" that is, ancient battlefield, ancient Shouzhou kiln site, paleontological fossils, "one rare" refers to Bagongshan tofu.
Since 1992, the Huainan Municipal Association has held the "Tofu Culture Festival" on September 15 every year. Tofu has become a well-known tourism and cultural business card in Huainan City and even Anhui Province, and Bagongshan has also won the laurel of "The Birthplace of Tofu".
However, there are still some controversies in the academic community about "who invented tofu", but the legend that Liu An did not succeed in refining Dan and invented tofu by mistake has long been widely circulated.
At the beginning of the invention of tofu, due to poor solidity and taste, it did not enter the mainstream of cooking for a long time. It was not until the Five Dynasties period that tofu became a popular food, and people called it "little slaughtered sheep", which is comparable to mutton.
In the Song Dynasty, tofu began to be fully popular, innocent, square tofu, but also by the Song Dynasty literati as a synonym for incorruptibility.
At that time, Tai'an tofu was the most famous, and today Tai'an people are still proud of their three beauty, that is, the famous cabbage, tofu and water.
When su Dongpo was demoted to Huangzhou, Feng Lu had limited living constraints, but he created "Dongpo tofu" in a bitter way, which became a famous vegetarian dish that has been passed down through the ages;
Lu You once said in the "Notes of the Old School": "Tofu, gluten, milk and the like are all honeydew food, and many customers cannot be eaten." However, Dongpo is also cool and honey-loving, and can be fed with it. ”
In Tokyo's Bieliang Castle, dishes made from tofu are everywhere, such as tofu soup, honey-stained tofu, snow soup, fried tofu...
The Song Dynasty was not only the beginning of Chinese's love of tofu, but this delicacy spread to Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States, and became popular.
Some people may think that tofu should be brought back to Japan by the Tang Dynasty's master of authenticity, or by Japanese students.
But in fact, from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, there is no written record of making or eating tofu. It was not until a book written at the end of the Five Dynasties to the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty that the name "tofu" appeared here.
Moreover, the earliest written record of tofu in Japan is in 1183 AD (the tenth year of the Southern Song Dynasty). According to the scholar Tian Tong, the diary of the god lord of Nara Kasuga Wakamigu Shrine, Yu shigeru, once recorded:
"Among the species of imperial vegetables dedicated is 'spring near Tang Fu'". "Tang Fu" is pronounced similarly to "tofu", which is modern tofu.
Just as Chinese people believe that tofu was invented by Liu An, the king of Huainan, Japanese people are more willing to believe that Chinese tofu introduced to their country by the Heian Dynasty was brought by emissaries and monks who traveled between China and Japan.
Kanjin and Kukai are believed to be the originators of the introduction of tofu to Toei. To this day, Japanese tofu still has advertisements: "Tang Chuan dried tofu, Huangshan Imperial Gate, Huainan Hall system."
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of taizu formulated the system of "persuading honest banquets" to encourage his subjects to be honest and serve the public.
The main course of this feast is three dishes and one soup: radish, leek, green vegetable and tofu soup, taking the meaning of "one clear and two white";
Tang Bin, the inspector of Jiangning in the Qing Dynasty, was honest and honest as an official, and was content to be poor, and three meals a day were served with tofu soup, so he was awarded the reputation of "Inspector of Three Soups".
In 1665 (the fourth year of the Kangxi Dynasty), the Dominican scholar Min Ming, in his Travels, introduced europeans to the Emperor Zi in China for the first time.
Down to the common class of the common people to eat a food - tofu, and the preparation of tofu, but did not arouse the interest of Europeans.
In the 19th century, tofu officially entered Europe, Africa, the Americas and other regions and countries, but it was still not taken seriously.
Until the middle and late 20th century, with the frequent and deepening of cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries, with the rise of vegetarianism and healthy diet concepts in Europe and the United States, tofu began to sweep the West, and tea, porcelain, silk, world-renowned.
And tofu quickly conquered Western vegans, including former Beatles member, the famous Paul McCartney.
At the same time, tofu is also known as the "four major inventions" of Chinese food along with bean paste, soy milk (one says gluten), and bean sprouts.
Tofu is even praised by some as one of the "100 great inventions that have influenced human civilization"!
From ancient times to the present, whether it is the banquet of the royal nobles, the dinner table of ordinary people, the menu of literati and scholars, or the fasting hall of monks and laymen, it is indispensable to taste tofu. Innocent, square tofu, it strings the memories of generations of Chinese people for more than two thousand years.