I usually like to eat tofu, so refreshing and tender, so plain and eager, full of infinite homesickness.
A nursery rhyme, an ancient and humble nursery rhyme, appeared in a distant memory, "Branch crutches, grind beans, make tofu, please grandma." Grandma is not at home, please sisters. The sisters don't have pants, touch and touch the little belly..." When humming this ballad, an old man and a small one sat cross-legged, holding hands together, you pulled over, I pulled over, as if in a circle to push the stone grinding, grinding beans, the old woman and the baby's face was clearly full of joy, the mouth did not feel the sweet, smooth and tender taste of water tofu.
Tofu is our "national dish" and the most popular dish loved by the Chinese people. Regarding the origin of tofu, it is said that the mother of Liu An, the king of Huainan in the Western Han Dynasty, likes to eat soybeans, once his mother was seriously ill and could not eat the whole soybeans, Liu An let people grind the soybeans into powder, afraid that the powder was too dry, he rushed into some water to boil into soy milk, and was afraid of the weak taste, and then put some salt brine, the result condensed into a block, that is, the current tofu flower. It is generally believed that the production of tofu is likely to be invented by mistake by Liu An and the alchemists when they were practicing Dan. Southern Song Dynasty poet Zhu Xi's "Tofu Poem" Yun:
The beans are scarce, and the exhaustion has rotted.
Knowing the Huainan technique early, he sat down and obtained quanbu.
And self-note that "the ancestral tofu is originally the Huainan King's Technique". The Ming Dynasty physician Li Shizhen also said in the "Compendium of Materia Medica": "The method of tofu began with Liu An, the former king of Huainan in the former Han Dynasty. ”
Tofu white and tender light, delicate and smooth, fragrant and nourishing, but its production method is more complicated, need to foam soybeans, push grinding juice, hanging bag to remove slag, into the pot to cook the pulp, gypsum or brine ignition, into the bag of hoisting and many other processes. In the Song Dynasty, the local poet Wang Laoren, who sold tofu as a business, was deeply touched and composed a poem about oil:
Chao Chao is only close to Mo, and there is no Dafa for pushing me.
Crush a ball of real white jade and return to the future people.
The Ming Dynasty poet Su Bingheng wrote more about the method of making tofu:
The Huainan technique is the best, and the skin fades to see the essence.
A round of grinding up the flowing liquid, boiling snowflakes in the boiling soup.
The toad was soaked with shadows, and the golden knife cut through the jade flawlessly.
Who knows the taste, mostly in monks and Taoists.
The poem gives a concise, flexible and vivid depiction of the invention, preparation, characteristics and food customs of tofu, and the admiration jumps on the paper and is intriguing.
Su Shi, a great scholar of the Song Dynasty, was a huge fan of tofu, and he wrote a long poem "Answering Eryuzi and Wang Lang Seeing Peace", which included a sentence: "Boiled beans for milk fat for crisp, high-burning oil candles pour honey wine, poor families have a hundred things at the beginning." "Depicting a scene of entertaining a friend with wonderful tofu. Su Shi is proficient in cooking, and he personally handles the spoon to create a delicious tofu that has been passed down through the ages. In the third year of The Song Dynasty (1080), he was demoted to the deputy envoy of the Huangzhou Regiment, lived for four years, and wrote hundreds of poems, making specific introductions to stews, stir-frying, cooking, pancakes, cooking rice, boiling porridge, and simmering soup, including the famous "Dongpo tofu". In the "Mountain Family Qing Offering" compiled by Lin Hong in the Song Dynasty, only two kinds of tofu dishes are listed, one is Xuexia soup, and the other is Dongpo tofu. Dongpo tofu is cooked with tofu and bamboo shoots and shiitake mushrooms, and is tender on the outside, bright in color and mellow in flavor.
In the pen of the ancients, tofu also has many elegant numbers. The Southern Song Dynasty foodie poet Lu You can't forget tofu, and he wrote in the poem "Mountain Valley":
The new scoop is as smooth as a bead, and the spinning Li Qi is soft and crispy.
More yaoyao seedlings pick wild vegetables, and the mountain family does not have to go far away from the kitchen.
The first two sentences describe the preparation method of tofu. He also stews tofu, chanting:
Turbid wine gathers adjacent to the song, and occasionally comes to the non-overnight period.
Swab plates stacked continuously, wash and boil Li Qi.
- "Neighbor Song"
Lu You once marked: "The Shu people call tofu 'Li Qi'". In addition, tofu also has dozens of names such as preserved beans, milk, large vegetarian vegetables, small slaughtered sheep, king grain, water joy, water plate, white character field, white hemp meat, Tuohe, nephrite jade, salt cheese, etc. Just listening to these beautiful and moving names, you can't help but be salivating.
The white and delicate white of the tofu, the hot fragrance and smoothness, lured the literati and inkers to chant poems and praise. The Southern Song Dynasty poet Yang Wanli has a "Soft Biography of Dou Luzi" in the "Chengzhai Collection", which introduces the life of tofu in an anthropomorphic brushwork: "Rotten, harmonic squid; Dou Luzi, the name of the rot (鲋), lives in Huang County, made of soybeans, white and pure, and tastes like the wind of ancient big soup Xuan wine." He once lived in seclusion in Chushan, appeared at the end of the Han Dynasty, and was first heard of in later Wei. "It's fun to conceive. Zheng Yunduan, a famous female poet of the Yuan Dynasty who was born in xiangmendi and a Confucian family, also loved this vegetarian dish, and sang a song of "Praise toFu":
Grow beans under the south mountain, frost wind old pods fresh.
Grind the jade milk and steam it to form a clear spring.
The color is crisp and pure, and the fragrance is stronger than the chalcedony.
The taste is beautiful, and the five foods should not be passed on.
Explained the hardships of growing beans, the hard work of grinding beans to make tofu, and the beauty of tofu color and flavor.
Zhang Shao, a beginner in the Qing Dynasty, is a master of writing tofu, and he has a poem "Wing Tofu", which reads:
Wet beads grind snow wet, refined into agar pulp up plain clothes.
Out of the box Ning sorrow fang bi crushed, excellent soup common white cloud flying.
Vegetable plates are accustomed to mixing with sheep cheese, and it is difficult to pick up like a stick than marrow fat.
But laughing Attic, Beiping thought about milk, and the frost knife did not cut the powder and returned.
From grinding beans and boiling soy milk to tofu, stewed tofu, and that unique flavor, the poet writes in meticulous detail, which can be described as a metaphor and a description of the gods.
Zha Shenxing, one of the "Six Houses of the Early Qing Dynasty", wrote no less than 10,000 poems in his life, which can be called a prolific poet, and praised tofu at all costs:
In front of the mao shop, green poplars are reflected, and more than one standard is planted next to the wine flag.
The cook can also be done aggressively, and the salt is smelled under the spoon.
Huawu gold plate is a real custom, and the red yeast of the wax groove has a new square.
It should be noted that in the career of the water, the water and milk blend the longest taste.
The poem is very well written, especially the last two sentences borrow the white texture of tofu to express the poet's beautiful discipline and elegant character, and achieve the artistic realm of the unity of things and me.
Yao Xingquan, another poet of the Qing Dynasty and known as "Mr. Falling Flowers", was obsessed with the white tofu in his hometown, and he wrote an advertising poem for his hometown of Tongcheng, Anhui:
Tongcheng good,
The tofu is very delicate.
Mix with soy sauce and ginger juice,
Scales of shrimp rice hot pot boiling,
Two or three scoops each.
The writing is even more wonderful, these two ways to eat tofu are simple and plain, and now many people have concocted the same method, which is really wonderful.
There are many varieties of tofu, and the flavor of the south wind is different. Li Tiaoyuan, a talented man in Sichuan in the Qing Dynasty, loved tofu and once wrote four tofu poems in a row:
After plastering, it is thick as cheese, and the foam is picked into a wrinkled garment.
Chopped into silver strips hanging and slippery, divided into jade segments carrying fat fat.
Recently, the price of decay is higher than that of meat, and it is only fearful that the poor will not save the hunger.
In this poem, there are two kinds of tofu skin and water tofu;
No need for jade beans and golden flutes, you can donate as much as you like a delicacy.
Chasing the smell sometimes into the abalone, smelling the incense and nowhere to distinguish the dragon saliva.
In this poem, there are dried tofu and stinky tofu;
The white water in the city is often drunk, and the temple is clear of oil and does not have a monument.
The most is the vast cold to the bone, and even the basket is called the strike to lie cold.
There are also oil tofu and frozen tofu in this song;
Only to smell the aroma has been eaten first, the white oil sealed four small urns.
Slippery like ointment can not be picked up, poor flavor like Huainan.
The last one also has tofu milk and tofu brain. The poet used a variety of techniques to praise the color and fragrance of various tofu, wrote out the emotions of ordinary people and tofu, and also reflected the phenomenon that tofu rose into meat prices at that time, expressing the poet's dissatisfaction with the real society.
There is also an interesting story about tofu. The Qianlong Emperor went down to Jiangnan to make a private visit, and one day he got lost in the countryside, and his stomach was grumbling with hunger. Suddenly I saw an old woman cooking vegetables, and the green and bright white and bright on the table was beautiful and the smell was overflowing. Qianlong couldn't help but ask the old woman for a bowl, wolfed down and ate a fine light, so he asked what kind of dish it was. The old woman narrowed her mouth and smiled, "This is 'gold inlaid with white jade plate, red-billed green parrot brother'." "It's actually an ordinary fried tofu stew with spinach."
The famous contemporary writer Wang Zengqi once said: "You can make a big book about tofu." Although Elder Wang did not write a biography of tofu, he left a poem of "Tofu":
Huainan Zhidan sand, accidentally into tofu.
Fragrant musk, white as milk.
For two thousand years, it spread throughout the state capital.
The taste of the north and south is different, and the old and tender are salted with the point.
Fatty and fresh fish, can also be boiled with vegetables.
Chen Po is heavy and spicy, honeycomb boiling sand salt.
Good color of food, long and young melt the internal organs.
Order millions of people one by one, and the belly of a good year can be drummed.
Thanks to the bean growers, the sweat drops under the soil.
Xu Zhuoduo, a modern novelist known as the "laughing man of the literary world" and "Chaplin of the East", once inscribed a poem for the commemorative book of the literary historian Zheng Yimei, with tofu Mingzhi: "The way of being a man must be like tofu, fangzheng is white, and can be meat and vegetarian." "Tofu is not only beautiful and delicious, but also can be learned, we should be like that tofu, left innocent in the world, square and square in the world."
-Author-
Liu Qirui, male, a native of Tancheng, Shandong, a veteran literature lover, published the essay collection "The Song of that year", "Nostalgia is a Curved Blue Moon" and the short story collection "Hedong Hexi".