According to legend, at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu and Wang Mang fought to be emperors, and Wang Mang chased them to a small mountain village where Tujia people lived together. Tired and hungry, he asked a farmer for a bite to eat. The farmer gave him a bowl of lazy tofu, and Liu Xiu shouted delicious after eating it. Later, Liu Xiu became the Yellow Emperor and invited a master to the court to make lazy tofu by the Qingjiang River.
"Noodles are lazy, straw sandals make tofu" is a true portrayal of rural life in mountainous areas in the 1960s and 1970s, but lazy tofu can't be eaten every day. At that time, there were few soybeans distributed collectively and the area of private plots was small, but every household always planted some soybeans in the corner of the field to improve their daily life. When I was a child, I occasionally met a lazy tofu rice, just like a holiday. I waited at the kitchen table early, and when I cooked it, I couldn't wait to scoop up a big bowl and eat it beautifully. If I can drop a few drops of sesame oil or put some leeks and Chili powder, it will be even better. When I think of that smell, my dreamy childhood comes to mind with a deep homesickness.
In my memory, the best lazy tofu is that every time I cook Chili sauce at home, my parents don't wash or grind the fine Chili after pushing it. With the spicy taste, they will put the soybeans soaked in advance into the mill, make a lazy tofu by the way, add some ginger, garlic and pepper to enhance the taste, and put some tender pumpkin leaves in the cooking process. The old man said that it is best to grind a soybean into eight pieces when processing lazy tofu. If it is too fine, it will not taste good. Later, I tried it, and the taste was really different, but I didn't know the secret.
I remember when I was in junior high school, most of the students who sent me to school brought pickles, and three meals a day was a bit boring. Sometimes students with good family bring some soybeans and work together after school. Some grind soybeans, some buy salt, some get oil, some pick vegetables, and they are very busy. Although lazy tofu is not as delicious as mom's, everyone is still very happy to eat it, and keep the feelings of classmates in mind.
Last summer, we came to a remote Tujia village for free clinic, about 200 kilometers away from the county seat, with an altitude of 1500 meters, and the temperature was nearly 10 degrees lower than that of the county seat, where a fire had been baked. When the local villagers heard that we were coming, they had already prepared local specialties, one of which was sour and lazy tofu, so they left the prepared lazy tofu for a day or two and fermented naturally, which made it taste a little sour. But this delicious food is not always available. I remember eating in my hometown.
I didn't know until I learned some medical knowledge that the nutrients in flour rice (cooked with corn flour) and lazy tofu can complement each other to meet the needs of the human body. This can explain why Tujia people were not malnourished because of lack of staple food in those difficult times.
Nowadays, people in this city like to travel in their spare time. They always want to see the great rivers and mountains of the motherland and taste all kinds of delicious food. Green mountains and green waters have become a place people yearn for. In the past, when guests came, we had to book a better restaurant first. Now they are going to find a hut in the countryside hundreds of miles away, see the Qingjiang River, talk about Tujia culture and taste the local flavor. Of course, lazy tofu is indispensable, and the feeling after eating it is cool! ?
In fact, lazy tofu is not everything. Eating fresh and delicious once in a while is annoying every day. It can also cause physical discomfort. For example, grandpa Sun, a neighbor, ate lazy tofu for three days in a row to induce gout. It seems that eating and doing things should be at the same level.