"The ancient city of Shouzhou in Shouxian County, Anhui Province, known as Shouchun since the Warring States period, is an ancient city with a history of two and a half thousand years, and today is the only well-preserved ancient city wall of the Song Dynasty in the country. From the three generations of the ancient times, from Liu An's 'Screen Fugue' to Lu Benzhong's 'Cai Sang Zi - Hating the King is not like the Moon on the River Tower'; from the 'King of Huainan's Psalm' of 'The sound of the Yangsong's mournful song is extinct, and there is no beam in the river when I want to cross it,' to the western song 'Shouyang Le' of 'The Long Huai He is Rotten and the Road is Long', such as all these are the same. ', such as these all show that Shouchun Ancient City is vivid and poetic." Famous journalists, writers Huaijun chief editor said, the national historical and cultural city of Shouxian, to Shou for the name, a long history; to the name of life, the ancient city glory. Shouxian inherited the great development of Chinese culture, poetry and song, calligraphy, painting and acrobatic arts to push the boundaries, which is Shouzhou's cultural heritage glowing with a different kind of splendor.

In China, probably no one does not like eating tofu, to let people say the birthplace of tofu, today can answer out of the people will be not a few, by today's world known as the "nutritional treasures" of the tofu, its birthplace in Shouxian, Huainan, and the invention of the tofu is more than 2,000 years ago, King of Huainan Liu An. Liu An is the grandson of Liu Bang, Han Gaozu, Shouchun (now Shouxian), in order to seek longevity and immortality, and Sufei, Li Shang, Zuo Wu, Wu was, Chen by, Mao Zhou, Lei was, Jinchang and other eight public Taoist alchemy, the results of the elixir is not yet, but unintentionally made the bean curd, such a touching story is true or false, let's not say, but, the Ming Dynasty Li Shizhen's "Materia Medica", "the method of tofu, began with the Han Huainan King, the first time tofu is a nutritional treasure," the originator of it is Huainan King Liu An. method, began in Han Huainan Wang Liu An", this sentence is true. The Song Dynasty poet Su Shi had also written a special poem, "Boiled beans for milk fat for pastry, high burning oil candle pouring secret wine" to describe the tofu.

The earliest tofu is not called "tofu", the ancient called cream beans. Western Jin Dynasty Guo Pu's description of the paste beans: "good flavor, all slippery as paste." "Paste" in the "Shuowen Jiezi" as: "fat, from the meat", Duan Yucai note said: "fat as fat". Beans" refers to beans, beans in the soybean-based. Cream beans means white as fat soybeans, soybeans themselves do not have these characteristics, but tofu is precisely in line. Whether it's history or legend. There is no need to argue that the tofu produced in the Bakong Mountains is indeed tender and sweet, white as fat, for the tofu in the top quality.

In Shouxian's streets, whether on the scale of star-rated hotels, or roadside restaurants, there is no not tofu as one of the signboards of their own dishes; in the ordinary residents of the three meals a day, you can certainly see the figure of this tofu. Sitting in the restaurant along the street, tasting smooth and soft, tender and flavorful tofu, on the bank of the Huaihe River on the unique small dishes and snacks, consciously living the life of the people of Huainan country fast. "Brine point tofu, one thing to another", eat in Shouzhou, will make you happy.

North of Shouzhou ancient city, under the Bakong Mountain is the Chinese tofu village, Bakong Mountain has a spring specializing in tofu, where produces the best made tofu. There is an ancient spring in the Chinese Tofu Village, which is as famous as Pearl Spring and Agate Spring. The villagers still use the spring water every day to grind soybean milk and make Bakong Mountain tofu, which has been passed down for thousands of years. The sweetness and flavor of Bakongshan Tofu has a lot to do with the water here. The soil irrigated by the Huaihe River also produces high-quality soybeans. Soybeans here are full-bodied and high in protein, making them the first choice for making tofu. If soybeans are the flesh and blood of good tofu, then the water is the soul of tofu.

There are several thousand-year-old springs near Shouxian, among which the Pearl Spring at the foot of Baigongshan Mountain is the most famous, and the water used for Liu An's alchemy is said to be taken from here. There are countless pearl-sized bubbles coming out of the ground in the spring, and the water temperature is kept at about 10℃ even in the cold winter, the water is clear and sweet, and it has never dried up despite its long history, which creates the myth of tofu in Bakong Mountain.

In Shouxian, a good local chef can cook you a veritable feast of tofu in all its colors, flavors, and shapes whenever you need it. Tofu is the main ingredient in the feast, from the cold dishes to the final dessert. The tofu dumplings are particularly special, with a meat filling wrapped in a tofu dumpling skin, steamed, and served with gravy, which has become a famous dish in the Bakong Mountains. There are two main points of tofu dumplings: the knife work should be accurate, and the tofu should be good.

Once upon a time, tofu sales in the Bakong Mountains were of a morning market nature, done in the early hours of the morning, picked up and sold at the market, both fresh and without the preservatives of today's tofu. Nowadays, we Chinese people often eat tofu, is the southern tofu and northern tofu. Southern tofu is tofu formed by solidifying soy milk with gypsum, as in the case of Bakongshan tofu, which can also be called gypsum tofu. South tofu is white in color, delicate in cut, and tender in texture. Northern tofu is also called marinated tofu. As the name suggests, it is made using salt brine to solidify the soy milk. The north bean curd is not as tender as the south bean curd, the cut surface is slightly rough, the water content is less leading to hard texture, because not so watery, also called the old bean curd.

Of course, food is the only thing that makes Shouzhou people proud of what they eat, not only tofu, but also silverfish and kingfish, which are natural and rare delicacies. In the Binyang Gate outside the Dongfang River, the middle section of the riverbed is low-lying, wide water surface, this place is rich in silverfish, of course, not far to the east of the Wabu Lake is rich in silverfish is located, and more locally known as "Wah shrimp," the white shrimp. In addition, there are Shouzhou pear, peach, Shouxian peach is a real "Shou Peach", the skin is magnificent red, meat fine juice, sweet and delicious.

Touring the mountains, traveling to places of interest, usually buy some gifts. If you go to Shouxian to bring some of the specialties home, Shouzhou people will recommend "big save driving". "Big rescue"? It's a pastry. Legend has it that in 956 A.D., Zhao Kuangyin rate hundreds of thousands of troops attacked Shouchun, the South Tang general Liu Ren support rate of soldiers to die, the two sides face each other for more than nine months, and finally Zhao Kuangyin victory into the city, due to overworked, Zhao Kuangyin does not think about food, the city's chef with flour, sugar, lard, cinnamon and other dozen kinds of raw materials, made into pastries offered to Zhao Kuangyin. Zhao ate after appetite even said good, he did the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty, but also said that the pastries saved his ride, "big save the driver" from the name has been passed on to this day, become a major feature of Shouzhou food.

Shouxian is a thousand-year-old city that has been a mystery to archaeologists, and has had the resounding years of the "Golden Goose and Iron Horse, swallowing ten thousand miles like a tiger", as well as the euphemistic lingering of the "Who is drunk for who woke up, and now still hate to be parted lightly". Over the past thousands of years, the special geographic location of this ancient city is not only a place of war, but also a place of flood erosion. However, this ancient city has a remarkable endurance, with a miracle of the mysterious factors, it can always be in the catastrophe of the fire rebirth, as the legendary phoenix.

Wandering in the long history of this familiar and unfamiliar ancient city, from time to time always feel a breath, a kind of from the ancient through the vicissitudes of the breath, is the history, is the culture, is the legacy, is the power, is the spur, is the horn? Now, no matter whether the sigh, no matter whether the hush also, the past has long been over, the opportunity of the new era in front of us, but only care and improvement is the responsibility for the history and a strong identification, so that the ancient city rejuvenation is the dream of the expectations. (Wen/Shangguan Wan Er, also known as Shangguan Wan, alias Huainan nine Gong, ah Lou Ge master, famous newsman, painter and calligrapher, connoisseur collector, writer)