Little square armor tea color,
There is no need to cook the incense.
The aftertaste of chewing is strong,
It caused the monks not to think about fasting.
This poem is said to be the all-round feeling of the eyes, nose and tongue of the Qing Dynasty, poet and novelist Wei Xiuren when he tasted the dried tofu in Taiyuan. Bai Juyi's well-known "Lychee Diagram Sequence", the routine of writing lychee is to focus on the three dimensions of color, incense and taste, and Wei Xiuren is obviously well versed in its way. His seven-word poems also sequentially shape the bright color of Taiyuan dried tofu black tea, non-fried smell, interdental aftertaste, and finally with the love of the monks, the main theme of the whole poem is set off, simply lifting the small Taiyuan dried tofu to the level of "Buddha jumping the wall" of Fujian cuisine.
Wei Xiuren, a Min person who knows more about the taste of Buddha jumping off the wall, is extraordinary. During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, he served as an aide under Wang Qingyun, the governor of Shanxi in Taiyuan, and immediately followed Wang Qingyun into Sichuan Gaoyi, but did not stay in Shuzhong for a few days, and then returned to Longcheng, which was difficult to abandon, and opened a museum in the Taiyuan prefect's baoling residence to collect apprentices. It was also during his years of practicing whipping and teaching that Wei Xiuren, who was quite sloppy in the official field, wrote the most important work of his life, "Traces of the Flower Moon". Taiyuan people should know the most that this "fifty-two times" long Jin Yangzao, full of poetry and pearls, is engraved between the lines of the deep and state officials, the traces of the teaching field, the traces of the city well, the traces of the streets, the traces of the wind and moon, and it is the second long romance novel in the history of Qing Dynasty novels after "Dream of the Red Chamber".
▲ "Traces of the Flower Moon" by Wei Xiuren
Published by the People's Literature Publishing House
The place where the story of "Traces of the Flower Moon" takes place is mainly the Taiyuan City where "Qijiang is shielded and the northwest is anointed". Wei Xiuren arranged most of those drunken and noisy things, male and female laughter in the Pleasure Garden on the streets of the vegetable market; and most of those things that were swinging under the moon and you and me were placed in Furong Zhou in Liuxi Lake. The character activities in the book are also based on the background of Liu Lane, Haizibian, Chunyang Palace, Gongyuan, Xianqian Street, Dongmishi Street, Dajiaochang, Qinglong Town, Shilingguan and other places, and even write about the custom of "dragon boat grabbing" in the Wufen River in early May in Taiyuan, so that we can clearly see the charming portrait of Taiyuan at that time.
But "Traces of the Flower Moon" failed to eat like "Dream of the Red Chamber", although the book wrote countless liquor bureaus, but it is dead or alive without mentioning the wine dishes, so Taiyuan dried tofu and this dried tofu poem, it is very regrettable that it was not able to appear with Wei Yizhu, Liu Qiujian, Han Hesheng, Du Caiqiu, these handsome men and women.
Whether "Traces of the Flower Moon" is written or not, the Ming and Qing literati like to chew dried tofu with wine and rice, but it is ironclad. The most conclusive evidence of this is that the last words left by another great scholar, Jin Shengsi, before being beheaded by the Qing government, turned out to be "peanut rice and dried beans are chewed together, and there is a great taste of ham, and this skill is passed on, and there is no regret in death"! Look.
▲ Illustration of "Traces of the Flower Moon"
Dried tofu can receive such a high evaluation, and the contribution of dried tofu in Taiyuan is particularly worth mentioning.
Dried tofu in some places called dried tofu, dried, white dried, dried tofu, ten square seeds, white goods, in the mouth of the old Taiyuan, there are also "number rotten dry", "name rotten dry" and "provincial rotten dry" said. This is because at that time, Taiyuan dried tofu was produced by both old merchants and peddlers. In the Qing Dynasty, Taiyuan "Zicheng", "Shixing", "Longsheng", "Juquan" and other centuries-old brands processed dried tofu, because of its superior raw materials, exquisite craftsmanship, chewy food, strong bean flavor, excellent taste, it was named "number", "name" and "province" by the Taiyuan people, in order to show that it is different from the relatively crude processing of small traders manufacturing.
In fact, Taiyuan tofu and dried tofu in the Northern Song Dynasty has been famous in the Three Jins, some places in Jiangnan called tofu "daifu", obviously imitating the Taiyuan dialect, it can be seen that Taiyuan is undoubtedly the earliest region in China to nurture tofu culture. Taiyuan has further become a place for the deep processing of tofu, for roughly two reasons: one is relative to Jiangnan, the land is bitter and simple; the other is the land of four wars, and there are many military affairs. Therefore, the deep processing of water tofu into a convenient food that is easier to store for a long time and more conducive to the march has a more realistic and urgent need.
In the Ming Dynasty, the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang formulated the rules of "persuading honest banquets", and the standards of banquets at all levels of government officials implemented "three dishes and one soup", that is, three plates of radish, leeks, and green vegetables, plus a tofu soup, which means that innocence is for officials and clean work. Taiyuan, as a fiefdom of the King of Jin, of course, followed the wind and resolutely implemented it, so the Jin Dynasty bought a large number of tofu and dried tofu. The dried tofu made by Zhang Yinghu, a skilled hand in Taiyuan, became the exclusive supply of the royal palace in the competition, leading the five-spiced style, occupying the head of the white goods, attracting the tofu craftsmen from the north and south to brush together to gather in Taiyuan City to learn art.
In the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi fled to the capital at night, and on the way to Xi'an, she temporarily rested in Taiyuan, eating taiyuan dried tofu and praising it, which should not be a wind catcher. At this time, the production of Taiyuan dried tofu has been customized in Zhang Yinghu's era, the raw materials are only used in the local northern suburb of Huyan Village planted in the "longan" "swan egg" rhubarb beans, boiled old brine soup and added large ingredients, peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom, sand kernels, galangal, cloves, tangerine peel, wood fragrance, fennel and other more than ten kinds of spices, "first boiled and then stuffy, three boiled three stops", and then after 3 days and 3 nights of shaking and drying, fine workmanship, so as to become a must in Jinfu.
After the founding of New China, Taiyuan tofu dry long-established brands "Longsheng", "Zicheng" and "Shixing" united to form Taiyuan Soybean Products No. 2 Factory, "Wuyou" joint venture to Taiyuan Brewery, the food technology that has been passed down for thousands of years has been undertaken, and the taste and memory of the old Taiyuan people has been continued. In addition, The Xugou dried tofu outside the city has risen to become the new upstart of the Taiyuan rotten dry industry with its hard texture, salty and fragrant aftertaste, rich and diverse varieties, and won the gold medal of the Shanxi Provincial Agricultural Excellence Exposition in 1994 and the silver medal of the Second Agricultural Exposition in China in 1995, which won a wider praise for the Dried Tofu in Taiyuan, and Wei Xiuren's dried tofu poems also inserted wings that flew far and high.
Although the old Taiyuan people's consumption of dried tofu is not very fine, it cannot be eaten very little. To sum up, it is nothing more than cold mixing, hot stir-frying, frying, cooking, or holding a piece in your hand and eating it directly.
Hot stir-frying method, the most common is pepper stir-fry, parsley stir-fry, leek stir-fry, shredded meat stir-fry, no matter who is compatible, dried tofu is definitely the main ingredient, eat that flavor. The fried dried tofu is tender on the outside and tender on the inside, and the dried slices of boiled tofu are thin and smooth, and there are also lovers of their own. However, Taiyuan people believe that the cold mix eating method can best reflect the true color of dried tofu. Just cut a little fine green onion, with a little sesame oil and salt, and at most pour a few drops of sour and refreshing vinegar, the bean fragrance that is weighed down by a large stone will be released between the teeth and cheeks, becoming the first choice for all year round to enjoy and feast on the stage. And for example, the dried tofu that Mr. Jin Shengsi longed for before his death and mixed with peanut rice is really only the most common way for Taiyuan people to eat.
Source: Wenbo Shanxi