According to legend, Zhu Yuanzhang was born in poverty and was once too hungry to stand. He picked up the expired tofu discarded by others, fried it and stuffed it into his mouth. The delicious taste is unforgettable. Later, he became the commander-in-chief and successfully hit Anhui all the way. As soon as he was happy, he ordered the whole army to eat stinky tofu to celebrate, and stinky tofu was widely circulated.

Origin and types of stinky tofu

There is another folklore about the origin of stinky tofu. It is said that during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, an Anhui man named Wang Zhihe made tofu for a living in Beijing. Once, on a hot summer day, he cut tofu into small pieces, put it in a jar, added a lot of salt and pepper, and sealed it. Later, after a long time, Wang Zhihe forgot about it. When he opened the jar, it smelled so bad that the tofu turned blue-black. He tasted it curiously and it was delicious. In this way, stinky tofu was born.

There are three kinds of stinky tofu: Changsha stinky tofu, Shaoxing stinky tofu and Beijing Wang Zhihe stinky tofu.

There is a deep pit stinky tofu in Taiwan Province Province, which is big and does not fry. It tastes sour and tastes like old tofu.