"In autumn, when the maple leaves are red, we often walk to the temple-centered tofu cooking shrines, such as nanzenji, Daigakuji and Tianlong Temple. Find an old shop with a garden, cook soup and tofu with a small mud stove and sip sake on an open-air platform with a red carpet, and enjoy the colorless, unintentional, pure and quiet ethereal realm with changing clouds, rain and snow. This is the happiness of being born in Kyoto! The familiar tea ceremony teacher said with a smile.

The editor-in-chief of Tokyo Agricultural News once said, "Tofu saved the Japanese. "

" hmm?

"In Nara era, the envoys to China brought back the Buddhist doctrine of not killing, and the emperor issued a letter banning meat. Fortunately, the monks who went to the Song Dynasty to learn Buddhist scriptures in Kamakura era learned how to make tofu. Tofu, as the main ingredient of Zen forest cuisine, was quickly loved by the aristocratic samurai class. However, it was not until the next year of the Edo period that the ordinary people advocated eating "the meat in the field" that tofu became popular. Before that, it was still a celebration dish once in a while on the New Year's Day! "

" Come on, it's officially forbidden, and it's just that you have no meat to eat. In private, ordinary people still try their best to kill pigs to satisfy their cravings. In case they are caught red-handed, they call it "mountain whale meat" for medical treatment. Yes, the opening ban of the Meiji Restoration finally allowed the Japanese to eat meat openly, but the status of tofu was not as good as before. Your old proverb says, "tofu is eaten without food." Now no one is so stupid, right?

When he interrupted me, I snapped. Bad habits can't be changed.

The traditional handmade tofu is made by using domestic soybeans, which are twice as expensive as imported products, and grinding them in a stone mortar, squeezing them in a cloth bag, adding sweet Seisensui and natural bittern, and solidifying them in a wooden mold. The fragrance and luster are completely different from those of ordinary machine products.

When talking about Japanese tofu, the first association is Kyoto, the place where the ancient royal family lived. Tofu, which used to be called "wall" in the palace because of its square white color, will become an important part of Kyoto cuisine for several reasons: Zen temples are densely distributed everywhere; Elegant taste, suitable for local conditions; Jing Quan, which makes tofu, has excellent water quality; Kyoto is not near the sea, far from fish and fresh, and lacks protein sources.

in the 17th century, there were two specialized tofu shops in the Yasaka Shrine in Mio Garden, selling "Dengaku" baked with Toona sinensis and miso charcoal, and the name of "Mio Garden Tofu" gradually spread throughout the country. As for the most famous way to eat "soup tofu", although it originated near the Takatsu shrine in Osaka, it found a stage in Kyoto and made a big splash. You haven't been to Kyoto without eating soup and tofu-this is the knowledge of travelers.

When cooking soup tofu, first soak kelp in water for three or four hours as the soup base, pour it into a ceramic casserole that is not easy to cool, cook it to about 6 degrees with fire, put down the washed tofu, and keep your eyes on it. When the tofu is ready to move and float, it will change to a small fire, which is the best time to pick it up and eat it. Generally, the dipping materials are mostly Chai Yu soy sauce, which is mixed with chopped green onion, ginger paste, lime juice, seven-flavor Chili powder or pomelo peel filaments. The better the tofu is, the less it can spoil the original flavor. More importantly, if tofu is boiled for a long time, it is easy to produce small holes and destroy the dense taste.

In the mid-Edo period of the 18th century, why bother to call himself "Awakening Crazy Taoist"-judging from his name, I suspect that he is of China origin-successively published "Tofu Baizhen", "Tofu Baizhen sequel", "Tofu Baizhen appendix" and "Tofu Baizhen Yu Lu" in Osaka, and always introduced 278 dishes. Judging from the six grades listed by the author: ordinary products, general products, excellent products, exotic products, wonderful products and unique products, tofu is indeed a fiery red ingredient in the Edo period. Now, famous tofu shops all over Japan take "Tofu Baizhen" as a model, trying to reproduce the dream delicacies in the book. It is said that Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965), a modern writer and beauty addict, was lucky enough to eat every tofu dish every day during his stay in Kyoto-278 dishes! If the rumor is true, isn't this strange uncle, who is famous for his book Love for Idiots, crazy about tofu as well as women?

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Kyoto is proud of tofu, but the main consumption place of tofu in Japan is Okinawa, which is about twice the average of other regions. As the longest-lived county in Japan, there is a saying "stir-fried tofu with bitter gourd" (ゴーヤーチャンプルー): Island tofu is slightly harder than ordinary kapok tofu, and it is used. Under the sun of subtropical islands, it's a nutritious and appetizing family dish!