In ancient Chinese cuisine, there is a very interesting phenomenon, that is, the emperor's "contribution" to food. Yulin's earliest famous traditional food is not anything else, but the most traditional and homely spinach braised tofu. Children who grew up in Yulin are no strangers to the sentence "Fragrant white jade version, red-billed green parrot brother".
Legend has it that this is a famous sentence that the Kangxi Emperor praised when he came to Yulin and ate the spinach stewed tofu in Yulin. In the sentence, the jade version is another name for bamboo shoots, and the poem praises Yulin tofu as fragrant as white bamboo shoots; spinach is also called parrot vegetable, the root of the dish is red, and the two poems vividly express the color and aroma beauty of spinach braised tofu.
Of course, whether the Kangxi Emperor really ate Yulin's spinach braised tofu is now impossible to verify, what is important is that because there is a gimmick of the emperor's good poetry, people who come to Yu always have to taste the food in the emperor's mouth.
Some eaters say that ordinary people have their own way of life, and they can't afford to eat the taste of mountains and seas, but they can find unique flavors in ordinary vegetables and vegetables.
"Spinach braised tofu" is one of the traditional dishes in Yulin. Emerald green spinach, white tofu, is always the best choice for the life of the people. There are not too many complicated handicrafts, nothing more than a pot of braised with enough ingredients. The ingredients are also rough and simple, only three things, spinach, tofu and potatoes, which are very fresh and elegant.
At present, the spring breeze is ten miles, and everything is recovering. Riding on the warm spring sun, the spinach that has been silent for a winter has accumulated a winter's spirit, riveting enough to go upwards, straight to the stem, straight and straight, the leaves are wide and fat, green and shiny, tender can pinch out the water, emitting the unique fresh breath of spring.
Spring spinach due to frost and snow, overwintering growth, so fresh and tender, soft and sticky taste, the aftertaste also with a wisp of sweetness, and local fresh tofu cooked in the same pot, the taste is extremely fresh, bad teeth of the elderly and children especially love to eat.
The most wonderful place about spinach braised tofu is that in the process of making, the color and taste of spinach are retained to the greatest extent, and the eating habits of tofu and potatoes are not taboo, and the meat is always suitable, which will not take away the original taste of fresh vegetables. In addition, people's feelings about food are sometimes not only transmitted by the taste buds, but also the visual abundance makes people feel from the bottom of their hearts that this is indeed an authentic rural delicacy. Therefore, even though spinach braised tofu is a minimalist food, it is still touching to eat. The authentic taste of that food really makes people taste the local people's expectations for a stable life in food.
I still remember a few years ago, I met an elderly local chef who asked him whether there was really a Kangxi Emperor to eat vegetables. The chef laughed and said: "Now the life is not as good as before, although tofu and potatoes are available every year, but vegetables are not often available, Yulin people pickle all kinds of sauerkraut pickles in winter, all because of the expediency of eating fresh vegetables in winter."
Yulin people in the spring, after the temperature rises will grow spring spinach, then the temperature is low only spinach can be planted, eat a winter of sauerkraut, occasionally can eat fresh spinach with Yulin specialty tofu and potato stew together, the taste is natural and delicious. As for whether the Kangxi Emperor has eaten, the predecessors have been handed down in this way, let's think he has eaten it, after all, spinach braised tofu as long as it is done, white and green, refreshing and tender, really beautiful. ”
In recent years, the development of the times, there are experts on the Internet to study that spinach can not be eaten with tofu, because of the food habits, easy to cause physical discomfort after eating. When I relayed these words to my mother, who had eaten spinach stewed tofu for decades, the old lady was a little angry, and bai I glanced at me and said, "Your grandmother has eaten all her life, and I have eaten most of my life, and nothing happened. Then she turned around and went into the kitchen to continue cooking the delicacies she had eaten for most of her life.
A dish can cause my mother's anger, but I did not expect that perhaps the imprint of food injected into the blood cannot be made to disappear in any way, even if there is a risk after eating.
（CN）