Speaking of "Tofu Village", no one knows about it for miles around!

I don’t know which generation started, but most people in our village make and sell tofu to support their families.

When the boys in the family come out of school, they usually inherit the family business.

My father was no exception. After graduating from junior high school, he went home to make tofu with his grandfather and uncles.

Day after day, year after year, the simple and boring work process was repeated every day. Gradually, my father became tired of making tofu.

It wasn't until he married a wife and had children and established a new business that his father finally decided not to make tofu anymore.

When our three siblings were still very young, in addition to farming, my father went to work in the dyeing factory run by my uncle. We lived a relatively comfortable life during that time, and my father's work was relatively easy.

But as the three of us grew up and went to elementary school and junior high school, the wages from my uncle’s dyeing factory could no longer support our family’s expenses.

With no choice, his father left the dyeing factory, bought a second-hand tricycle, and went to the city to pick up people.

The business was good at first, but later due to safety reasons, the phenomenon of carrying passengers on human-powered tricycles was strictly controlled until it was banned, and my father became an unemployed vagrant.

It is extremely difficult for a person with neither knowledge nor skills to find a job in the city that can support his family.

Therefore, my father could no longer stay in the city, so he had to return to the countryside, resume his old business, and begin his career of making tofu for more than ten years.

Speaking of the tofu made by my father, it is the most famous in our village.

Perhaps it was the difficulty of finding a job after several years of wandering around, or perhaps it was the pressure of supporting a family and providing for the three of us to go to school, so my father became extra serious and hardworking after returning to his old career.

Although making tofu is already familiar to him, he still regards making tofu as the only way to support his family and treats it with all his heart and soul.

The soybeans used in the tofu made by my father are full-grained soybeans.

He never buys defective products in order to reduce costs like others do.

But if some elderly people exchange some not so good soybeans for tofu, my father will not refuse. He understands the difficulties of the elderly and the hardships and difficulties of their lives.

He would put the defective soybeans into bags. When he got home, he would sort out the good beans from the defective beans and throw away the bad ones.

His mother complained to him a lot about this and warned him not to harvest any more defective soybeans, but his father agreed with his mother in person and continued to go his own way after that.

My father always said, "Suffering a loss is a blessing"!

It takes about twenty-five pounds of soybeans to make one load of tofu.

After breakfast, my father would pour the soybeans selected by my mother into a large iron basin and soak them in water.

In the evening, the chubby soybeans that have absorbed enough water will be washed clean by the father, fished out of the water, and carried to the west end of the village to a house with a bean beater to make soybean juice. After being beaten, they will be picked back one by one and poured in.

In a large iron pot, use wheat straw to boil a large pot of bean juice.

Later, some people in the village used coal instead of wheat straw to burn fires to speed up and save time.

But my father has never used coal. He has always used wheat straw. He said that the soy milk made from burning wheat straw makes tofu fragrant. I don’t know whether this is true or not, but he has always insisted on using wheat straw to make fires.

After the soy milk boiled, my father would use a big iron spoon to scoop up the soy milk from the pot and then pour it down from mid-air, spoon by spoon in an orderly manner. Later I found out that this was to cool down and also to let the layer of water float on top of the soy milk.

When the foam disappears, the tofu skin will form.

After the temperature is lowered, a layer of tofu skin will form on the soy milk, just like milk skin. Use a slender bamboo pole to go deep under the tofu skin from the middle and lift it up. A crystal clear tofu skin will be ready. Hang it on the wall to dry.

, can be stored for a long time.

It can be soaked in water, served cold, or stir-fried. It is very delicious.

Sometimes we would tear them off piece by piece and eat them before they were even dried.

Without any cooking method, just put it in your mouth and chew it, and you can taste the bean flavor.

When my father makes tofu, he only peels off one piece of bean skin every time, never more. According to him, if you peel too much, the tofu will be chewy and will affect the taste of the tofu. This is also the principle of life that he advocates and warns us: "People can't be too greedy."

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The soy milk with the bean skin peeled off will be transferred into a large vat. My father uses the soy milk to make a spoonful of gypsum powder, holding the spoon in his left hand and the pole (a homemade special tool) in his right hand.

While pouring the gypsum juice into the vat, stir the soy milk from bottom to top.

After a while, the soy milk will solidify. Cover the jar and wait for about an hour.

After an hour, the tofu curd will be ready. We used to call it tofu nao, and it was also a delicacy that could be served as dinner.

If the people in the village who don't make tofu want to eat it occasionally, they will hold a bowl and wait for the tofu to come out.

People often come to visit our house, and of course it is free. My father has never disliked it. He always enthusiastically puts the hot bean curd into the visitor's bowl, and keeps saying "Come here if you want to eat" when leaving.

Xu’s father is highly skilled and his father is warm and easy-going. Neighbors often come to the house to ask for some bean curd.

The bean curd made by Chu Weng will be scooped out and poured into a square wooden frame covered with tofu cloth. After the two wooden frames are full, the cloth will be folded in half to cover the bean curd, and a board made of wooden strips will be placed on top.

Put a big stone on top.

At this point, all the steps of making tofu are completed. After one night, the water in the tofu is squeezed out, and it can be sold out the next morning.

My father’s tofu is famous for miles around, and my father’s shouting is also unique.