Today, people all over the world regard tasting China tofu as a wonderful artistic enjoyment, which is as famous as China's tea, porcelain and silk.
It may be hard for you to believe that in the 1980s, the famous American magazine Economic Outlook declared: "In the next decade, the most successful and promising products will not be automobiles, televisions or electronic products, but China's tofu."
Yes, everyone in China has tofu, regardless of gender, age, nationality or religion. This white, tender, healthy, long-lived and cheap tofu has also spawned a "tofu culture".
The first problem of tofu culture is the birthplace of tofu. China is undoubtedly the hometown of tofu, and the hometown is Shouxian. According to the Records of Five Metabolism in Song Dynasty, "The technique of tofu has never been heard in three generations. This thing began to spread to the world when it arrived at the King of Huainan in the Han Dynasty. " Zhu, a Dali scholar in the Southern Song Dynasty, also wrote in Su Wen Shi: "Growing peas is exhausting and rotten; If I had known the art of Huainan, I would have got the spring cloth early. " Note at the end of the poem: "Tofu handed down from generation to generation was originally the skill of the king of Huainan."
Liu An, the king of Huainan, is the grandson of Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Western Han Dynasty. In BC 164, he was named the King of Huainan, and his capital was located in Shouchun (now the Chengguan of Shouxian County, Anhui Province). The famous Bagong Mountain in ancient and modern times is on the edge of Shouchun City.
Liu Anya is good at Taoism and wants to live forever. He spent a lot of money to recruit alchemists. Among them, Su Fei, Li Shang, God Bless, Leibo, Wu Bo, Jinchang, Maobei and Zuohao are called "Eight Gong". Accompanied by eight masters, Liu An climbed the North Mountain and built a furnace for refining the elixir of life. They took cold water from three springs in the mountains, namely "Pearl", "Big Spring" and "Horse Running Spring", ground bean juice, and then cultivated Danmiao with bean juice. Unexpectedly, the alchemy failed, and the bean juice and salt mixed into a fragrant, attractive and white thing. The local bold farmers ate it and it tasted delicious, so they named it "tofu". Beishan was renamed "Bagong Mountain" from now on, and Liu An inadvertently became the ancestor of tofu.
Since Liu An invented tofu, dozens of villages and towns in Bagongshan, Fiona Fang have become veritable "Hometown of Tofu".
With tofu, there will naturally be tofu dishes. Bagongshan people, not to mention ordinary housewives, even 14-and 15-year-old dolls can make several tofu dishes with different flavors, such as tofu, egg tofu, hot sauce tofu, fried tofu and so on. After the reform and opening up, the "tofu shops" on the streets of Bagongshan can be seen everywhere and are well known. They simmer, cook, fry, fry, or slip away ... They gather their silk and carve their talents, which not only attracts local people to indulge in it, but also attracts people from neighboring cities and counties such as Hefei and Bengbu to this "tofu feast" from time to time, and even guests from Germany, Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hong Kong, Taiwan Province Province and other countries and regions often gather at the foot of Bagong Mountain. Tofu culture gradually spread throughout China. Zhuge Liang, born in Liang Daikang (now Nanjing) in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, is the author of 130. Jiangsu, which is adjacent to Huainan, is obviously "the moon comes first by the advantage of the water" and was first influenced by the tofu culture. So far, Jiangsu people have listed tofu, gluten, mushrooms and bamboo shoots as four vegetarian dishes in donkey kong.
After the Song and Ming Dynasties, tofu culture spread more widely, and many scholars and celebrities also entered the ranks of disseminators. Su Dongpo, a great writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, is good at eating tofu. During his two to four years as a magistrate, Yuan You personally made Dongpo tofu. Lu You, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, also recorded the making of tofu dishes in his "Collected Works of Weinan". More interesting is the book Emperor Kangxi and Tofu written by Luo Song, a minister of the Qing Dynasty. During Kangxi's southern tour of Suzhou, the emperor's new gift to the minister was not gaudy drama, but tofu dishes with human touch and local flavor.
With the spread of tofu culture, people all over the country constantly develop and enrich the methods of making tofu dishes according to their own tastes. There is a kind of "pocket tofu" in eastern Sichuan, which is characterized by milky white soup, olive shape, soft texture and delicious taste. Mapo tofu, which is well-known in Chengdu at home and abroad, has five characteristics: spicy, fresh, tender and spicy. It is a famous food in Hubei, a famous dish in Hangzhou, mirror tofu in Wuxi, shredded chicken sauce in Yangzhou, moldy tofu in Tunxi, and fermented bean curd with bean curd skin as raw material. When tofu dishes go to the more distant frontier, the unique flavor will be more abundant. For example, Jilin is popular with "vegetarian chicken tofu", which is bright in color and rich in five flavors; There are also "Clam Almond Tofu", almonds for relieving cough and moistening intestines, and China Rana for clearing brain and improving eyesight. Tofu is soft and tender, pure and milky in color, and sweet and refreshing for short-term consumption. In addition, Koreans use beef, vermicelli, eggs and tofu to make "Meiyun soup", Guangxi Zhuang people have a famous dish "steamed tofu ball", and Yunnan Dali Bai people have "wax snail tofu", which is tender, smooth, spicy and spicy. "Snail bean curd with crystal sugar" is a folk tonic for nourishing yin and reducing fire and treating neurasthenia ... In this way, in the long-term social development, tofu from Bagongshan in Shouxian County has finally spread all over China, gradually forming eight series of China tofu: First, water tofu, including thick north tofu and delicate south tofu; The second is semi-dehydrated products, mainly blinds and thousands of sheets. The third is fried products, mainly fried bean curd and fried gold wire; Fourth, halogen products, mainly including spiced dried tofu and spiced shredded tofu; Fifth, smoked products, such as smoked sausage and smoked belly; Sixth, frozen products, that is, frozen tofu; Seventh, dry products, such as tofu skin and oil skin; Eight is fermented products, including well-known tofu milk and stinky tofu. Among these eight products, there are tender tofu from Bagongshan in Huainan, Anhui, white tofu from Guilin, Guangxi, Shaoxing tofu from Zhejiang, Kedong tofu from Heilongjiang, triangle tofu from Guangdong, stinky tofu from Wang Zhihe, Beijing and dried tofu from Wuhan, Hubei. , have become famous tofu products at home and abroad.
For more than two thousand years, with the cultural exchange between China and foreign countries, tofu has not only traveled all over the country, but also moved to the world.
Speaking of this period of history, we have to mention Jian Zhen, a great monk in the Tang Dynasty. In Tianbao 12 (AD 757), Jian Zhen traveled to Japan and brought the method of making tofu. Up to now, Japanese tofu packaging bags still have the words "Tang Chuan dried tofu made in Huangbaishan Royal Huainan Hall", and many tofu recipes directly adopt Chinese names. Such as January Couple Tofu, February Bao Li Tofu, March Pill Tofu, April String Tofu, May Fish Tofu, etc.
After Japan, neighboring countries such as North Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines also learned from China about tofu making technology. Later, with the footsteps of a large number of American laymen, American tofu went to Western Europe and North China, and almost all countries in the world produced and sold soybean food.
At the same time, people all over the world have enriched the tofu culture with their own wisdom and customs. For example, Japan in the east uses natural pigments as raw materials to make red, blue and green colorful tofu; According to local resources, the Korean people have made bean curd soup with different flavors: bean paste bean curd soup, Harbin bean curd soup, Mingtai fish bean curd soup and so on. Indonesians generally like to eat "fried tofu"; Vietnamese in Myanmar have created "egg-blossom tofu" and "assorted dishes" in Southeast Asian style. It is particularly worth mentioning that "Baku tea" popular in Singapore and Malaysia is actually one of the tofu dishes. In the United States, businessmen process tofu into delicious fast food, such as tofu salad, tofu hamburger, tofu ice cream, tofu roast duck, tofu wedding cake and so on, which are very popular in the market. Since 1980s, there has been a noticeable "bean curd fever" in the world food and nutrition science. Tofu food with high protein and low fat is more and more loved by people all over the world and has become a delicious and healthy nutritional product unanimously praised by the scientific community. Tofu is one of the most widely used and popular cooking materials. It is made of soybeans, mung beans and black beans through soaking, grinding, filtering, boiling, refining, solidification and molding. The protein content of bean curd and bean curd products is higher than that of soybean, and bean curd protein is completely protein, which not only contains eight kinds of amino acids necessary for human body, but also has a ratio close to the needs of human body and high nutritional value. Tofu also contains fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. According to the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, tofu is sweet and cool, enters the spleen, stomach and intestine, and has the effects of invigorating qi, harmonizing middle energizer, promoting fluid production and moistening dryness, and clearing away heat and toxic materials. Can be used for treating pinkeye, quenching thirst, and relieving sulfur and soju poisoning. Although tofu is good, eating too much has disadvantages, and eating too much will also endanger health.
Problem 1: Causes indigestion: Tofu is rich in protein. Eating too much at a time not only hinders the absorption of iron, but also easily leads to protein's indigestion, abdominal distension, diarrhea and other uncomfortable symptoms.
Question 2: Promoting the decline of renal function: Under normal circumstances, protein, a plant that people eat in the body, undergoes metabolic changes and most of it becomes nitrogen-containing waste, which is excreted by the kidneys. When people get old, the ability of the kidneys to excrete waste decreases. At this time, if you don't pay attention to your diet, eat a lot of tofu, and eat too much protein, it will inevitably increase the nitrogen-containing waste produced in your body, increase the burden on your kidneys, and further reduce your renal function, which is not conducive to your health.
Question 3: Promote the formation of arteriosclerosis: American medical experts point out that soy products are rich in methionine, which can be converted into cysteine under the action of enzymes. Cysteine can damage endothelial cells of arterial wall, and it is easy to deposit cholesterol and triglyceride on arterial wall, thus promoting the formation of arteriosclerosis.
Question 4: Lead to iodine deficiency: Soybeans that make tofu contain a substance called saponin, which can not only prevent atherosclerosis, but also promote the excretion of iodine in the human body. Long-term excessive consumption of tofu can easily lead to iodine deficiency, leading to iodine deficiency disorders.
Question 5: Promote gout attack: Patients with gout whose tofu contains more purines, whose purine metabolism is abnormal, and whose blood uric acid concentration is increased are prone to gout attack, especially those with gout should eat less.
It can be seen that tofu is good, but it can't be eaten every day, and it can't be overdone at one time. The elderly and patients with kidney disease, iron deficiency anemia, gout and arteriosclerosis should control their diet. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that people with cold tofu and stomach, people who are prone to diarrhea, abdominal distension, spleen deficiency and kidney deficiency and frequent nocturnal emission should not eat more.
Tofu is rich in nutrition, containing many essential trace elements such as iron, calcium, phosphorus and magnesium, as well as sugar, vegetable oil and rich high-quality protein, and is known as "vegetable meat". The digestion and absorption rate of tofu is above 95%. Two small pieces of tofu can meet a person's daily calcium requirement.
Tofu is a nourishing, heat-clearing and health-preserving food. Regular eating can tonify the middle energizer, clear away heat and moisten dryness, promote fluid production to quench thirst and clear the stomach. It is more suitable for people with heat constitution, bad breath, thirst, indigestion and fever. Modern medicine has proved that tofu not only has the function of increasing nutrition, helping digestion and stimulating appetite, but also is beneficial to the growth and development of teeth and bones, and can increase the iron content in blood in hematopoietic function; Tofu contains no cholesterol, and is a medicinal food for patients with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hypercholesterolemia, arteriosclerosis and coronary heart disease. Supplementing nutrition for children, patients and the elderly is also a good diet therapy. Tofu is rich in phytoestrogens and has a good effect on the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. It also has the function of inhibiting breast cancer, prostate cancer and hematological tumor diseases. Sterol and stigmasterol in tofu are both effective components in inhibiting cancer.
Tofu is one of the auxiliary materials in traditional Chinese medicine processing. Boiled tofu is one of the processing methods of traditional Chinese medicine. Implant the medicine into tofu, cover with tofu, and cook over high fire until the tofu is honeycomb-shaped and the color of the medicine becomes lighter, about 4 hours. Such as sulfur, which contains toxic components, can reduce toxicity after being cooked with tofu and be cleaned. Because tofu is rich in protein, it is an amphoteric compound, which can not only precipitate with alkaline substances, but also dissolve some acidic toxic substances to reduce toxic components, and because of its large surface area and many gaps, its adsorption effect is good.
Tofu can also be used for dietotherapy and has certain medicinal value. For example, stewed onion with tofu can cure the first cold and eat it 3 ~ 5 times a day; Cooking crucian carp with tofu can cure measles patients with residual heat and can also be used for lactation; Fried tofu with onion can be used for edema and swelling; Tofu and radish soup can be used to relieve asthma by phlegm fire; Boiled tofu with brown sugar can be used for vomiting blood.
How to choose and keep tofu fresh can be said to be the protagonist of vegetarianism, and kelp is rich in iodine, which makes some people like to eat traditional board tofu, while others prefer the smoothness of boxed tofu. No matter which one you prefer, you should pay attention to the purchase and preservation of tofu.
Tofu itself is slightly yellow. If the color is too white, bleach may be added, so it is not suitable for purchase. In addition, tofu is a kind of food in protein, which is prone to corruption, especially the plate tofu sold in the free market, which is more easily polluted than the boxed tofu, so we should pay more attention to it.
Boxed tofu needs to be refrigerated and bought in a place with good refrigeration equipment. When the packaging of boxed tofu has bulges, the tofu inside is turbid, and there are many and large blisters, which is a bad product. Never buy it. However, tofu without packaging is perishable. Soak it in clear water immediately after buying it back, put it in the refrigerator and take it out before cooking. Take it out for no more than 4 hours and keep it fresh. It is best to eat it on the day of purchase.
Boxed tofu is easy to store, but it still needs to be refrigerated in the refrigerator to ensure that it will not rot during storage. If you can't eat it all at once, you can cut it as much as you need, and the rest can be put back in the freezer to eat next time.
Tofu, as a kind of food with the same origin of medicine and food, has many functions, such as invigorating qi and tonifying deficiency. Generally, the calcium content of 100g tofu is 140mg- 160mg, and the protein content of tofu is relatively high in plant food, which contains 8 amino acids necessary for human body, and also contains unsaturated fatty acids and lecithin which are lacking in animal food. Therefore, eating tofu regularly can protect the liver, promote metabolism, enhance immunity and detoxify.
The disadvantage of tofu is that the soybean protein it contains lacks an essential amino acid-egg acid. If you eat alone, the utilization rate of protein is low. For example, if it is matched with some other foods, it can supplement the egg amino acids lacking in soybean protein, so that the proportion of the whole amino acids tends to be balanced, and the human body can fully absorb and utilize the protein in tofu. Protein of eggs and meat has a high methionine content, so tofu should be matched with these foods, such as tofu scrambled eggs, chopped tofu, roasted tofu with sliced meat and so on. This collocation can improve the utilization rate of protein in tofu.
Tofu is a healthy functional food.
According to modern scientific research, tofu has a series of functions to protect human health.
Mainly:
1. Tofu is the best special food with low insulin and less ammonia stalk.
2. Tofu can improve the body fat structure.
Eating tofu can prevent cancer.
Eating tofu can prevent and resist menopausal diseases.
Eating tofu can prevent and resist osteoporosis.
Eating tofu can prevent and resist, and can improve memory and mental concentration.
Eating tofu can prevent and resist aging and dementia.
Eating tofu can prevent and resist liver diseases.
Eating tofu can prevent and resist diabetes.
Eating tofu can prevent and resist arteriosclerosis.
Eating tofu can prevent and resist colds and influenza.
How is tofu made? Soak soybeans in water, swell and soften, grind them into soybean milk in a stone mill, then filter off bean dregs and boil them. At this time, the protein particles in soybean are surrounded by water and keep moving, as if dancing in a soybean milk bucket, but they can't get together, forming a "colloid" solution. To turn colloidal solution into tofu, you must order brine. Bittern or gypsum is used to ignite bittern. Brine mainly contains magnesium chloride, and gypsum is calcium sulfate, which can make dispersed protein particles quickly gather together and become shiny bean curd. Squeeze the water out again, and the tofu brain will become tofu. Tofu and tofu brain are both concentrated bean protein. When we drink soybean milk, we sometimes repeat the process of making tofu. Some people like sweet syrup. Soymilk with a spoonful of sugar has not changed. Some people like to drink salty pulp. Pour some soy sauce or add some salt into the soybean milk, and soon, the glistening tofu brain will appear in the bowl. There is salt in soy sauce, and the properties of salt and brine are similar, which can also destroy the colloidal state of soy milk and solidify protein. Isn't this the same as making tofu? Soymilk is brine, and tofu brain appears. Tofu brain filters out water and becomes tofu. Press the tofu tightly, and then squeeze out some water to become dried tofu. It turns out that soybean milk, bean curd brain, dried bean curd and dried bean curd are all protein beans, but they contain more or less water. Milk is similar to soybean milk and is also a colloidal solution. In fresh milk, casein, that is, protein, is wrapped in cream, dispersed in water and constantly moving. Therefore, milk is always a uniform milky white liquid. Let the milk ferment into yogurt, and casein will gather and condense into a lump, like tofu brain.
Tofu is an ancient traditional food in China. In some ancient books, such as Compendium of Materia Medica by Li Shizhen in Ming Dynasty, Caomuzi by Ye, Wuyuan by Luo Qi, etc., it is recorded that the method of making tofu began in Liu An, the southern king. China people first ate tofu, which made great contributions to the benefit of the world in the history of human diet.
Soybeans that make tofu are rich in nutrition. The following are the protein price comparisons of several main animal and plant protein foods (when the standard protein price is 100): egg 100, beef 83, fish 70, rice 67, whole wheat flour 53, corn 59 and soybean flour 74. It can be seen that the protein price of soybean is equivalent to that of fish and is the best among plant proteins. Soybean protein is completely protein, with good amino acid composition and eight essential amino acids. Except for protein, the oil content of soybean is about 18%, and most of it can be transferred to bean products. Soybean oil has a large proportion of linoleic acid (the main fatty acid necessary for human body) and contains no cholesterol, which is not only beneficial to the development of nerves, blood vessels and brain, but also can prevent common diseases such as cardiovascular disease and obesity. Soybeans also contain some protease substances, saponins and vitamin-destroying components, which have adverse effects on human health, but they can be eliminated as long as they are heated properly. On the other hand, when soybean is directly made into food, the protein digestibility of human body is only 65%, but after being made into tofu, the digestibility can be increased to 92% to 95%. It can be seen that tofu is the most beneficial to people in the soybean family.
Tofu is not only delicious food, but also has the function of health care. According to Chinese medical classics, tofu tastes sweet and cool, enters the spleen, stomach and intestine, and has the effects of invigorating qi, regulating middle energizer, promoting fluid production and detoxifying. It can be used for curing diseases such as red eyes, quenching thirst, stopping dysentery, sulfur, and removing toxic substances by shochu. These have been affirmed by modern medicine and nutrition pool. For example, tofu does have a hangover effect; Tofu can quench thirst and is a good food for diabetics. As the saying goes, "tofu with green vegetables keeps you safe", which is exactly people's praise for the nutritional and health care value of tofu. After thousands of years of evolution, tofu and its products have become a major category of cooking materials in China. There are countless local famous products, and more than 10,000 kinds of dishes, snacks and other delicious foods can be cooked. This is inseparable from the massive cooking of tofu and its products. For example, it can be used as a dish alone, as a main ingredient, an auxiliary material, or as a condiment; Can be processed by a variety of cooking techniques, cut into pieces, sliced or diced, stewed or fried; Can be made into various dishes and shapes, such as cold dishes, hot dishes, soup, hot pot, rolls, clips, pills, buns and so on. It can also be made into various flavors, which not only has the original flavor of dry incense, but also has unique flavor absorption characteristics. "Tofu is more delicious than bird's nest." Because tofu and its products have so many advantages, it is no wonder that it is popular and prosperous for a long time.
Nowadays, tofu and its products are not only common food for China people, but also have gone abroad and enjoyed a world-renowned reputation. While fried chicken and steaks in the United States attract residents from other countries, tofu, a traditional food from China, has entered the American market with its unique charm, and has become a recognized ideal food with its outstanding advantages of high protein, low fat, low calorie and low cholesterol, which is favored by Americans.