There is a common dish in Japanese cuisine called sesame tofu, have you ever thought about its relationship with Chinese tofu? What kind of cultural exchanges and collisions have been accompanied by the birth and development of sesame tofu? Follow the small editor to increase the knowledge!
<h2 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Chinese hemp rot </h2>
Cold mix hemp rot. Pictured from: Sunny Rain's blog
The Chinese dietary system (including utensils, most condiments, and the use of tables and chairs) was largely completed in the Song Dynasty. The cooking methods of modern Chinese food are not fundamentally different from those of the Song Dynasty nearly a thousand years ago. There is a food that has been documented in the Song Dynasty, and there is still a place to eat it, that is, hemp rot. In the Northern Song Dynasty work "Tokyo Dream Record", there is a record of "hemp rotten chicken skin".
In addition to the "hemp rot" made of sesame seeds, there are also "milk rot" made of cow's milk, "ling rot" made of old ling, "lotus rot" made of lotus root, and "millet rot" made of poppy seeds.
Records of hemp rot. Figure: ctext.org
The common feature of all the above rots is that mung bean starch is used as a coagulant, and the product is formed by full whipping and gelatinization. Until the Republic of China period, the Kuomintang elder Wu Zhihui also mentioned in the article that when he was in London, he used the starch left over from the washing of gluten to make hemp rot.
In the contemporary Chinese food world, hemp rot seems to have withdrawn from people's mainstream attention, but on closer inspection, there is still the inheritance of hemp fu dishes and the sale of related semi-finished products. Thousands of years up and down, there are still remnants.
Pictured: Liu Guozheng's "Compendium of Chinese Cuisine", 1966 edition
Spicy and sour mixed with hemp rot. Pictured: Xiao Xibao's Bean Fruit Food page
<h2 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Japanese sesame tofu </h2>
There are roughly two systems of Shojin cuisine in Japan: one is the Shojin cuisine of Eihei-ji Temple, which was founded in the temple by the Zen master Domoto who returned to Japan from China in that year, and has strict and clear regulations on the daily diet of monks, which is not attractive to the general public except for its role in practice; the other is formed in the early years of Edo, and was founded by the Japanese Hidden Zen Master from 1654 at Manfuku-ji Temple in Kyoto's Huang barberry Mountain.
Together with his disciples, he brought the daily diet of the Ming Dynasty Chinese Zen Monastery to Dongying, usually a table for four people. According to the history books, the diet of that time was restored, including hemp rot, which is also known as "Pucha cuisine", which has influenced the first-class temples and temples of the Huang Barberry Sect. Later, published in 1772, the book "Pucha Cuisine Copy" also clearly recorded ma tofu. The recipe of hemp rot in the same period was: a bowl of white sesame seeds, thinly stir-fried and crushed, add kudzu powder five, two bowls of water to cook, the container put water into the water, and the walnut rot recipe is the same. The two are delicate and cute.
Flax tofu in modern Japan. Figure: samuraibuyer.jp
Platters representing sesame tofu are often used as appetizers in kaiseki or vegetarian dishes, and in addition, there are a wealth of changes in the ingredients added, and there are usually twelve kinds of sesame tofu, mountain gardenia sesame tofu, tofu sesame tofu, peanut sesame tofu, fungus sesame tofu, matcha sesame tofu, edamame sesame tofu, kelp sprout sesame tofu, sea urchin sesame tofu, crab meat sesame tofu, black sesame tofu, egg yolk pine sesame tofu.
: Asahiya Shuppan, "Japanese Restaurant Sake Appetizer Daizen"
<h2 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the influence of environmental products on food culture </h2>
Why did Chinese food made with mung bean starch become made of kudzu powder after arriving in Japan? This also starts with the natural products of the two places.
Pueraria. Figure: 123rf.com.cn
Kudzu is a legume vine that is vigorous and can die when it is entangled with other plants. Kudzu originated in southeastern Asia and is available in three main ways:
Pueraria thomsonii Benth, distributed in southern and southwestern China, alias "pink kudzu"
P. tuberosa DC., distributed in Japan and India
Kudō P. thunber ginana (Sieb.et Zuc.) Benth., distributed in Japan and the southeastern United States
Kudzu appeared very early in Japan, and is recorded in the Manyoshu and is known as one of the "Seven Grasses" of autumn. Kudzu can be found everywhere on embankments, wastelands, and hills everywhere, and the Japanese people have made extensive use of kudzu since ancient times, such as making kudzu powder and kudzu soup with kudzu root, and making cloth with kudzu fibers. To this day, the area around Mount Yoshino in Nara is still famous for producing the best kudzu powder.
Japanese kudzu pastry. Figure: 123rf.com.cn
Although mung beans have been cultivated in China for more than 2,000 years, they were only introduced to Japan from China or the Korean Peninsula in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It can be seen that in the process of spreading food culture, even if it is in the same cultural circle, after continuous transformation, it has been far away from the original form, and only the name is still retained, indicating the origin and inheritance of the food.
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