My grandfather in my memory is not good at cooking, but his stone mill tofu is full of my whole childhood and even now. For me, tofu is not only a kind of food, but also an attachment to memories.
When I was young, my grandfather would grind a box of tofu every holiday. Stone grinding tofu is a technical job. Although the process is complicated, grandpa's taste has never changed.
Every time, Grandpa would soak the selected soybeans in the well water just lifted one day in advance, and then quietly wait for the soybeans soaked all night.
The next day, he and his grandmother will get up early to clean the stone mill.
Grandma will carefully pick out the broken soybeans that float on the water, and then carefully clean those soybeans that become soft after soaking.
The stone mill is very heavy, and it is very difficult for one person to push it. Grandpa made a long wooden frame with one end connected to the handle and the other end connected to the beam with a rope.
Every time grandma pulls the wooden frame with both hands and pulls the stone mill hard, grandpa will push the wooden handle of the stone mill with one hand and throw the soybeans into the small hole in the middle of the stone mill with the other hand. Those soybeans gradually turned into slurry under the pressure of the stone mill and flowed into the wooden basin along both sides of the stone mill. Sometimes I help, but children always do things on a whim and lose interest after playing for a while.
After grinding the raw soybean milk, grandpa will light a stove to burn the pot, pour the raw soybean milk into the pot to boil, and then start to drain the soybean milk with gauze. The bean dregs are the drained products.
Bean dregs are also delicious in rural areas. Whether it is fried bean dregs, bean dregs soup or bean dregs cake, as long as chopped green onion, Jiang Mo and green pepper are added, the taste is good.
And my favorite is stinky tofu residue. Add some salt to the fermented bean curd residue to make a big dumpling, dry it during the day and put it in a hot pot without fire at night. In a few days, the fragrant stinky tofu residue will be ready. Add some spices such as pepper and garlic when eating, and a delicious dish will be served.
After the soybean milk is drained, I will order tofu pudding, and my grandfather will order tofu pudding with gypsum. Every time I get to this point, I am very happy, because in a few minutes, I will be able to eat a bowl of hot tofu pudding with some sugar, which is tender and smooth and delicious.
Every time we order tofu, grandpa will first give us bowls of tofu, and the rest will be packed in square tofu grids and pressed dry. This is the last piece of tofu.
Now that grandparents are old, they no longer have the strength to use stone grinding bean curd, and the stone mill has gradually been replaced by machines, becoming a useless decoration.
Grandparents always say that machine-ground soybean milk is not as good as stone-ground soybean milk, and its taste and color are a little worse.
At this point, I really want to go back to eat my grandfather's stone mill tofu again, but my elderly grandparents have no strength to repeat this complicated traditional craft. Although grandpa passed this craft on to my uncle and father, there is nothing better than the tofu cooked by grandpa.