What tofu did Su Shi, a gourmet in the Song Dynasty, eat?

Tofu is a kind of food with rich nutrition and a long history. The public's love for tofu has promoted the progress and development of tofu production technology. The main production process of tofu is pulping, that is, soybean is made into soybean milk; The second is solidification, that is, soybean milk solidifies into a gel containing a lot of water under the action of heat and coagulant, that is, tofu.

Tofu contains a variety of trace elements necessary for human body, and is also rich in high-quality protein, which is known as "vegetable meat". The digestion and absorption rate of tofu is above 95%, and this kind of healthy food has always been loved by everyone. However, if we want to give full play to the nutritional value of tofu, we need to pay attention to good collocation.

In p>214, "Traditional Making Techniques of Tofu" was selected into the list of the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects in China. This magical China cuisine began to be endowed with more cultural connotations and inheritance significance besides the commodity value.

development history

China is the birthplace of tofu. According to legend, the mother of Liu An, the king of Huainan (177- 122 BC), likes to eat soybeans. Once her mother was unable to eat whole soybeans due to illness, Liu An asked people to grind the soybeans into powder, and for fear that the powder would be too dry, she rushed into some water to boil them into soybean milk, but for fear that the taste would be weak, she put some bittern, which turned into a lump, that is, tofu flower.

The mother of Huainan Wang was very happy to eat it, and her illness improved, so tofu was handed down. The making of tofu was probably invented by Liu An in organizing alchemists to practice alchemy. The alchemists used many minerals and inorganic salts in alchemy, and occasionally found that gypsum or other salts could solidify soybean milk to make tofu.

Zhu Xi, a famous poet in the Song Dynasty, said: "When you plant peas, you are exhausted and your heart is rotten. If you had known Huainan, you would have found a spring cloth." And self-note that "the handed down tofu was originally the king of Huainan." Ming Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica Tofu in Valley: "The method of tofu began with Liu An, the king of Huainan in the former Han Dynasty".

There are many records about the method of making tofu in some ancient books after the Ming Dynasty. In Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica, the rapid preparation of tofu and the use of coagulants are elaborated in detail: "The method of tofu can be used for all black beans, soybeans and white beans and mung beans. Method: soaking in water, crushing, deslagging, cooking, and depositing with brine or alum juice or acid and vinegar.