Today, people all over the world regard savoring Chinese tofu dish as a wonderful artistic enjoyment, which is as famous as Chinese tea, porcelain and silk.
It may be hard to believe that in the 1980s, the famous U.S. magazine Economic Outlook declared; "In the next ten years, the most successful and most marketable is not the automobile, television or electronics, but Chinese tofu."
Nice, Chinese tofu -- it's for everyone, young and old, regardless of ethnicity or religion. This white, tender, healthy, long-lasting, inexpensive and delicious tofu has also led to a "tofu culture".
The first question in the culture of tofu is where it originated. China is surely the home of tofu, its old home is in Anhui Shouxian. According to the five metabolic nick "Song Gleaner Records", "the art of tofu, three generations before and after the unheard of. This thing to Han Huainan Wang also began to pass its art in the world." Zhu Xi, a great rationalist of the Southern Song Dynasty, also wrote in his "Vegetarian Poem", "The beans are planted and the seedlings are scarce, and the heart has rotted with exhaustion; if I had known the technique of Huainan, I would have been able to get the spring cloth." At the end of the poem, he wrote: "It is rumored that tofu was originally the art of the king of Huainan."
Liu An, the King of Huainan, was the grandson of Liu Bang, the Gaozu of the Western Han Dynasty, and was named the King of Huainan in 164 B.C. The capital was set up in Shouchun (i.e., the present-day Shouxian Chengguan in Anhui Province), and the famous Bakong Mountain was at the edge of the city of Shouchun.
Liu An was good at Taoism and wanted to seek immortality, so he spared no expense in recruiting a wide range of magicians, of which the more famous ones were Su Fei, Li Shang, Tian Yu, Lei Bo, Wu Bo, Jin Chang, Mao was, Zuo Hao, known as the "eight males". Liu An Yu, accompanied by the eight gentlemen, climbed the northern mountain and built a furnace to make elixir for longevity. They take the mountain "pearl", "big spring", "horse running" three springs of fresh and clean water grinding bean juice, and bean juice to cultivate the Dan seedlings, but the alchemy is not expected, bean juice and salt brine into a fragrant, attractive, white and tender. Attractive, white and tender things. The local bold farmers to take and eat, surprisingly delicious, so named "tofu". Since then, Beishan has been renamed "Bakong Mountain", and Liu An has inadvertently become the ancestor of tofu.
Since Liu An invented tofu, the villages and towns within a radius of Bakong Mountain have become a real "town of tofu".
With tofu, there are naturally tofu dishes. Eight Gongshan family, not to mention the average housewife, that is, fourteen or fifteen-year-old dolls can make a few kinds of different flavors of tofu dishes, such as what the tofu with tofu, tofu eggs, spicy sauce with tofu, fried tofu and so on. After the reform and opening up, the streets of Bakongshan "tofu museums" abound, known far and wide. They or simmering, or boiled, or fried, or deep-fried, or slipped ...... together silk, carving each show their skills, not only attracted the local people often come to the addiction, Hefei, Bengbu and other neighboring cities and counties, people patronize the "Tofu Banquet" every now and then, and even Germany, Britain, Japan, Holland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries Even guests from Germany, Britain, Japan, Holland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries and regions often gather at the bottom of the Bakong Mountain to taste the "Shou Peach Tofu", "Pipa Tofu", "Grape Tofu", "money tofu" and so on, more than 400 kinds of realistic shape, colorful, delicious and unique flavor of the tofu dishes. Tofu culture is also gradually spread throughout the whole of China. North and South Dynasty Liang Dynasty Jiankang (now Nanjing) people Zhuge Ying had written "King Huainan Food Classic)) 130 volumes, adjacent to Huainan, Jiangsu is obviously "near the water tower first get the moon", the first by the influence of the tofu culture. Until now, Jiangsu people also put the tofu, gluten, mushrooms, bamboo shoots listed as the four major vegetarian dishes.
After the Song and Ming dynasties, the culture of tofu was more widely spread, and many literati came into the ranks of the spreaders. The Northern Song Dynasty great writer Su Dongpo good food tofu, Yuanyou two years to Wuyou four years as governor of Hangzhou during the period, had personally made Dongpo tofu. Lu You, a poet of the Southern Song Dynasty, also recorded the cooking of tofu dishes in his self-edited Weinan Wenji. More interesting is the Qing Dynasty Minister Song Eminent about the Kangxi Emperor and tofu a record. At the time of Kangxi's southern tour of Suzhou, the emperor's new gift to the minister is not gold and jade curiosities, but rather humane, rustic tofu dishes.
With the spread of tofu culture, people around the world according to their own tastes, continue to develop and enrich the production of tofu dishes. To this day, there are the "pocket tofu" in eastern Sichuan, featuring milky soup, olive-like, tender texture and delicious flavor; "Mapo tofu" in Chengdu, which is renowned both at home and abroad, is characterized by numbness, spiciness, freshness, tenderness, and hotness}. Tofu in Lotus Bread", Hangzhou's famous dish "Simmered Frozen Tofu", Wuxi's "Mirror Tofu", Yangzhou's "Dried Shredded Pork Boiled in Chicken Sauce", Tunxi's "Dried Shredded Pork Boiled in Chicken Sauce Wuxi "mirror tofu", Yangzhou "chicken sauce boiled dry silk", Tunxi "moldy tofu", and tofu clothes as raw material "rotten intestines with curd milk" and so on. When tofu dishes to the more distant frontier, the unique flavor is also more rich. For example, Jilin prevalent "vegetarian chicken tofu", color and lustre beautiful, five flavors; and "clams and almonds tofu", almonds to relieve coughs and intestines, clams to clear the head and eyesight, tofu is soft and delicate, pure milky white color, the dish tastes sweet and short-term refreshing. In addition, the Korean people with beef, vermicelli, eggs, tofu made of "plum cloud soup", Guangxi Zhuang famous dish "steamed tofu round", Yunnan Dali Bai people have "preserved screw tofu", tender and spicy, wax fragrance. Tender and spicy, wax fragrance. And "ice sugar screw tofu", is to nourish yin and fire, Yee treatment of neurasthenia folk flavor tonic ...... In this way, in the long-term social development, asked the Shouxian Bakongshan tofu, finally spread throughout the land of the gods, and gradually formed the eight series of China's tofu: One is water tofu, including the coarse texture of the northern tofu and tender southern tofu; two for the semi-dehydrated products, mainly 100 leaves, such as sheet; three for the deep-fried products, mainly deep-fried tofu bubbles and deep-fried Jinshi; four for the brine products, including five-spice tofu jerky and five-spice tofu silk; five for the smoked products, such as smoked vegetarian intestines, smoked vegetarian tripe; six for the frozen products, that is, frozen tofu; seven for the dried products, such as bean curd skin, oil skin; eight for the Fermented products, including the familiar tofu milk, stinky tofu and so on. These eight types of products, Anhui Huainan's Bakongshan tender tofu, Guangxi's Guilin white curd, Zhejiang Shaoxing curd, Heilongjiang's Kedong curd, Guangdong's Sanbian bamboo, Beijing's Wang Zhihe stinky tofu, Wuhan's stinky dry son, etc., have become famous in China and abroad, tofu boutique.
For more than 2000 years, with the exchange of Chinese and foreign cultures, tofu has not only traveled all over the country, but also to the world.
Talking about this history, we have to mention the great monk Jianzhen in the Tang Dynasty. Tianbao 12 years (A.D. 757), Jianzhen east to Japan, brought the tofu production method. To this day, the Japanese tofu bags still have the words "Tang dynasty dried tofu Huangber Mountain Ozen Huainan Hall production", and many tofu recipes directly using the Chinese name. For example, "Couple's tofu in January", "Ribo tofu in February", "Deep-fried ball tofu in March", "Yakitori tofu in April ", "May fish tofu" and so on.
Following Japan, neighboring countries such as Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines also learned the art of tofu making from China. Later, with a large number of Chinese expatriates footprints, Chinese tofu went to Western Europe, North America, almost all countries in the world have the production and sale of soybean food.
At the same time, people around the world have enriched the culture of tofu with their own wisdom and customs. For example, Japan's eastern neighbor to natural coloring as raw materials, the production of red, blue, green colorful tofu; North Korean people according to local resources, the production of different flavors of the tofu soup: soybean paste tofu soup, Hargow tofu soup, Mentai fish tofu soup, etc.; Indonesians generally love to eat "sauce mixed with fried tofu"; Burmese people Vietnamese people have created a quite Southeast Asian style of the The Burmese and Vietnamese have created a Southeast Asian style of "soy sauce mixed with eggs and tofu", "assorted dishes". It is worth mentioning that Singapore and Malaysia popular "meat bone tea", in fact, is also a kind of tofu dishes. In the United States, businessmen are processing tofu into colorful and delicious fast food, such as tofu salad, tofu hamburgers, tofu ice cream, tofu duck, tofu wedding cake, etc., in the market is very popular. 1980s, the world of diet and nutritional sciences, the emergence of an attention-getting "tofu fever", high protein, Low-fat tofu food more and more by the world's people's favorite, become the scientific community unanimously respected by the delicious health care of the nutritional benefits. Tofu is soybeans, green soybeans, black soybeans as raw materials, soaked, grinded, filtered, boiled, fine, coagulation and molding and other processes into the most extensive, one of the most popular cooking materials. Tofu and tofu products have a higher protein content than soybeans, and tofu protein is a complete protein, not only contains eight essential amino acids, and its ratio is close to the human body needs, nutritional efficiency is higher. Tofu also contains fat, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Chinese medicine theory, tofu taste sweet and cool, into the spleen, stomach, large intestine, with the benefit of qi and in the middle, the body fluid moist dryness, heat detoxification effect, can be used to treat the red eye, thirst, sulfur, alcohol, such as poison. But although tofu is good, eat more also have disadvantages, too much can also be harmful to health.
Problem 1: cause indigestion: tofu is extremely rich in protein, once eaten too much not only impede the body's absorption of iron, but also prone to protein indigestion, bloating, diarrhea and other discomforts.
Problem 2: Promote the decline of kidney function: under normal circumstances, people eat into the body of plant protein through metabolic changes, and finally most of the nitrogenous waste, by the kidney out of the body. People to old age, the kidney's ability to excrete waste declined, at this time if you do not pay attention to diet, eat a lot of tofu, intake of excessive plant protein, will inevitably make the body generate more nitrogenous wastes, aggravate the burden on the kidneys, so that the kidney function to further decline, is not conducive to good health.
Problem 3: Contribute to the formation of atherosclerosis: U.S. medical experts pointed out that soy products are extremely rich in methionine, methionine in the role of enzymes can be converted to cysteine. Cysteine will damage the endothelial cells of the arterial wall, easy to make cholesterol and triglyceride deposits in the arterial wall, contributing to the formation of atherosclerosis.
Problem 4: lead to iodine deficiency: the production of tofu soybean contains a substance called saponin, which not only prevents atherosclerosis, but also promotes the excretion of iodine in the human body. Long-term overconsumption of tofu can easily cause iodine deficiency, leading to iodine deficiency disorders.
Problem 5: Promote gout attacks: tofu contains more purine, purine metabolism disorder gout patients and patients with increased blood uric acid concentration of more food is easy to cause gout attacks, especially gout patients to eat less.
See, although the tofu is good, should not be eaten every day, do not eat too much. The elderly and kidney disease, iron deficiency anemia, gout, arteriosclerosis patients should control the amount of food. Chinese medicine, tofu is cold, cold stomach and easy diarrhea, bloating, spleen deficiency, and often spermatorrhea kidney loss should not be eaten.
Tofu is rich in nutrients, containing iron, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and other essential trace elements, but also contains sugar, vegetable oils and rich in high-quality protein, known as "plant meat" of the name. The digestive absorption rate of tofu is more than 95%. Two small pieces of tofu, can meet a person a day calcium needs.
Tofu is a complementary heat and health food, often eaten, can replenish the gas, heat and dryness, thirst, clean stomach and intestines. It is more suitable for hot body, bad breath and thirst, intestinal and stomach not clear, after the heat disease to regulate the consumption of people. Modern medicine has confirmed that tofu, in addition to increasing nutrition, help digestion, improve appetite function, on the teeth, bone growth and development is also quite beneficial, in hematopoietic function can increase the iron content in the blood; tofu does not contain cholesterol, for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, high cholesterol and arteriosclerosis, coronary heart disease patients with a good dietary supplements. It is also a good dietary supplement for children, the sick, the weak and the elderly. Tofu is rich in phytoestrogens, to prevent osteoporosis has a good effect. There is inhibition of breast cancer, prostate cancer and blood cancer function, tofu in the sterols, soy sterols, are cancer inhibition of effective ingredients.
Tofu is one of the auxiliary materials of Chinese medicine concoction. Tofu cooking is one of the methods of Chinese medicine preparation. The system will be implanted in the tofu drug and compounded with tofu cover, cook with fire until the tofu is honeycomb, the drug color becomes lighter, time about 4 hours. Such as sulfur yellow, containing toxic ingredients, cooked with tofu, one can reduce the toxicity, two can be clean. Because tofu is rich in protein, amphoteric compounds, both with alkaline substances to generate precipitation, but also to dissolve part of the acidic toxic substances, reduce toxic ingredients, and because of its large surface area, more voids, and has a good adsorption effect.
Tofu can also be used for therapeutic purposes, has a certain medicinal value. Such as onion stewed tofu, can cure the first signs of colds, eat 3 to 5 times a day; carp and tofu **** cooking, measles can be treated with Qi still have residual heat, can also be used for the next breast; onion fried tofu, can be used for edema swelling; tofu and radish soup, can be used for phlegm and fire roaring asthma; tofu and brown sugar **** cooking, can be used for vomiting blood, and so on.
Tofu how to buy and keep fresh tofu can be said to be the protagonist of the vegetarian diet, and kelp due to iodine-rich so that some people like to eat the traditional plate of tofu, and others prefer the smoothness of boxed tofu. Whichever you prefer, it's important to be aware of tofu shopping and preservation.
The color of the tofu itself is slightly yellowish, so if the color is too white, bleach may have been added, and it should not be purchased. In addition, tofu is a high-protein food, it is easy to rot, especially the free market plate tofu sold in the box is more susceptible to contamination, you should pay more attention.
Boxed tofu requires refrigeration, so shop at a place with good refrigeration facilities. When the packaging of boxed tofu has a bulge, and the tofu inside is cloudy with lots of blisters, it is a bad product and should not be purchased. Unpackaged tofu is easily spoiled. Immediately after purchase, soak it in water and place it in the refrigerator to chill, then remove it before cooking. Don't leave it out for more than four hours to keep it fresh, and it's best to eat it all on the same day you buy it.
Boxed tofu is easier to store, but it should still be refrigerated to ensure that it does not spoil during its shelf life. If you can't finish it all in one sitting, cut it into smaller portions and put the rest back in the freezer for next time.
Tofu, as a food for both food and medicine, has the function of benefiting the vital energy and supplementing the deficiency of the body. Generally 100 grams of tofu contains 140 mg -160 mg of calcium, tofu is a plant food containing protein is relatively high, containing 8 kinds of essential amino acids, but also contains animal food lack of unsaturated fatty acids, lecithin and so on. Therefore, eating tofu can protect the liver, promote the body's metabolism, increase immunity and have a detoxification effect.
Tofu deficiency is that it contains soy protein lack of an essential amino acid - egg atmosphere acid, if eaten alone, protein utilization is low, such as with some other foods, so that the soy protein in the lack of egg amino acids to supplement the entire amino acid ratio tends to balance the human body will be able to fully absorb the use of tofu. The protein in tofu can be fully absorbed and utilized by the human body. Eggs, meat proteins in the methionine content is higher, tofu should be mixed with such food, such as scrambled eggs with tofu, minced meat, tofu, meat burned tofu and so on. This with consumption, you can improve the utilization of protein in tofu.
Tofu is a functional food favorable to health
According to modern scientific research, tofu has a series of functions in the direction of ensuring human health.
The main ones are:
1. Tofu is the best special food with low insulin of ammonia stem.
2. Tofu improves the body's fat structure
3. Consumption of tofu prevents and fights cancer.
4. Consumption of tofu can prevent and counteract menopausal diseases
5. Consumption of tofu can prevent and counteract osteoporosis
6. Consumption of tofu can prevent and counteract can improve memory and mental concentration
7. Consumption of tofu can prevent and counteract aging and dementia
8. Consumption of tofu can prevent and counteract Diseases of liver function
9. Eating tofu prevents and fights diabetes
10. Eating tofu prevents and fights atherosclerosis
11. Eating tofu prevents and fights colds and influenza
How is tofu made? Soybeans are soaked in water, soaked and softened, then ground into soy milk in a stone grinding wheel, then filtered to remove the dregs and boiled. At this time, the soybean protein clusters are surrounded by water constantly moving, as if in the soybean milk bucket danced collectively, gathered together, the formation of a "colloid" solution. To make the colloidal solution into tofu, you must point brine. Spot brine with salt brine or gypsum, salt brine contains mainly magnesium chloride, gypsum is calcium sulfate, they can make the dispersed protein clusters quickly gathered together, into a white tofu brain. Then squeeze out the water, tofu brain becomes tofu. Tofu and tofu brains are cohesive soy proteins. We drink soymilk, sometimes repeating the process of making tofu. Some people like to drink sweetened milk. If you add a spoonful of sugar to soymilk, it doesn't change much. Some people like it savory. Pour some soy sauce or add some salt to the soy milk, and in a short while, white tofu brains appear in the bowl. Soy sauce has salt in it, and salt and salt brine are similar in nature, which also destroys the colloidal state of soymilk and makes the proteins coagulate. This is not the same as the case of making tofu? Soymilk point brine, the emergence of tofu brain. Tofu brains are filtered out of the water and turned into tofu. The tofu will be pressed, and then squeeze dry to remove some water, it becomes dried tofu. Originally, soy milk, tofu brain, tofu, dried tofu, are soy protein, but contains more or less water. Milk and soymilk is almost the same, is also a colloidal solution. In fresh milk, casein, or protein wrapped in cream, dispersed in water, constantly moving mine so that the milk is always a uniform creamy liquid. When milk is allowed to ferment and made into sour milk, the casein gathers together and curdles into clumps, like tofu brains.
Tofu is an ancient traditional food in China, in some ancient books, such as Li Shizhen's "Compendium of Materia Medica" of the Ming Dynasty, Ye Ziqi's "Kusume Zi", Luo Chip's "material original" and other artwork, there is a method of tofu began in the Han Dynasty, King of Huainan, Liu An's records. Chinese people are the first to eat tofu, in the history of human diet, set up the world's favor of the rich achievements.
The soybeans used to make tofu are rich in nutrients. The following is a comparison of several major animal and plant protein food protein price (to the standard protein price of 100 when): eggs for 100, beef for 83, fish for an average of 70, rice for 67, whole-wheat flour for 53, corn for 59, soybean meal for 74, which indicates that the protein price of soybeans can be comparable to fish, is the best of the plant protein. Soy protein is a full-value protein, its amino acid composition is relatively good, the human body essential 8 kinds of amino acids it has. In addition to protein, soybeans contain about 18% of the oil, the vast majority of which can be transferred to soy products. Soybean oil linoleic acid (essential fatty acids) proportion is larger, and does not contain cholesterol, not only is beneficial to the human body nerves, blood vessels, brain development and growth, but also to prevent cardiovascular disease, obesity and other common diseases. Soybeans also contain some protease substances, saponins and destruction of vitamins, they have an adverse effect on human health, but as long as the proper heating can be eliminated; on the other hand, soybeans directly made of food, the human body to its protein digestion and absorption rate of only 65%, and made of tofu, digestion and absorption rate can be increased to 92% to 95%. Visible, tofu is the soybean family in the human most beneficial.
Tofu is not only the flavor of food, it also has a health care role. Chinese medicine books: tofu, sweet and cool, into the spleen, stomach and large intestine meridian, with the benefit of gas and neutralization, the efficacy of the body and detoxification, can be used for the red eye, thirst, dysentery, etc., and to solve the sulfur, the toxicity of boiled wine. These, one after another for modern medicine, nutritional pool affirmed, for example, tofu does have the role of alcohol detoxification; tofu can quench thirst, is a good food for diabetics. As the saying goes, "green vegetables and tofu to keep safe", which is precisely the nutritional and health care value of tofu people's praise. After thousands of years of evolution, tofu and its products have been formed as a large group of Chinese cooking ingredients training, with countless local specialties, can cook no less than ten thousand kinds of dishes, snacks and other food. This is with tofu and its products have a wide range of culinary inseparable. For example: it can be a separate dish, can also be used as a main ingredient, auxiliary ingredients, or as seasoning; it can be processed for a variety of cooking techniques, cut into blocks, slices or diced or stewed or fried; it can be made into a variety of dishes, a variety of shapes, can be cold dishes, hot dishes, soups, hot pots and pots, can be made into rolls, folder, pills, packages and so on can be adjusted to make a variety of flavors, both the original taste of the dry incense, more unique flavor absorption characteristics, and the "tofu to get the taste is far away from the taste, but also to make the taste, the taste of the food. "Tofu taste, far better than bird's nest". Because tofu and its products have so many advantages, no wonder it is popular, long lasting.
Today, tofu and its products are not only the common food of the people of China, it has been out of the country, wind Mo world. When the U.S. fried chicken, steak to attract residents of other countries, China's traditional food - tofu is its unique charm into the U.S. market, with its high protein, low fat, low calorie, low cholesterol outstanding advantages and become recognized as the ideal food, favored by Americans.