In BC 164, Liu An was the king of Huainan, with Shouchun as its capital (now the chengguan of Shouxian County, Anhui Province).
Liu An has been thinking about how to live forever. He spared no expense in recruiting thousands of alchemists to talk about immortals and write about alchemy on today's Bagong Mountain. They used clear spring water in the mountains to grind out bean juice, and then cultivated Danmiao with bean juice. Unexpectedly, the elixir was not refined. Instead, bean juice reacts with gypsum and salt to form a fresh and smooth stuff, which is the embryonic form of tofu.
Someone got up the courage to taste some, and it was delicious. After Liu An heard this, he tried repeatedly with the alchemists and finally solidified the soybean milk. They gave this thing a nice name-fermented soybean milk, which was later renamed "tofu". Since then, tofu has been widely circulated among the people, and Liu An has inadvertently become the ancestor of tofu.
Ray Wu wrote in Ricao in Yuan Dynasty that "the method of tofu began with Liu An, the king of Han Huai", which was also recorded in Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica. In addition, the scene of making tofu on the stone reliefs unearthed in the ruins of Han tombs in modern times also proves that this view is also true.
Extended data
Tofu spread to other countries;
In Tianbao 12 (AD 754), Jian Zhen traveled to Japan and brought the method of making tofu to Japan. It is said that some Japanese tofu packaging bags now have the words "Tang Chuan Tofu Dried in Huangbaishan Imperial Huainan Hall System".
Tofu was introduced to Korea in Song Dynasty, and it was not introduced to Europe, Africa and North America until 19 century. Tofu has become one of the main foods in Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and other countries.
/kloc-Domingo ferná ndez de navarrete, a Dominican in 0/665, first introduced to Europeans a kind of food-tofu, which was eaten by emperor China and ordinary people, and introduced the method of making tofu.
In the mid-20th century, western countries were not familiar with tofu. With the cultural exchange between China and the West, vegetarianism and healthy food became more and more important, and tofu was widely eaten in the West at the end of the 20th century.
For more than 2000 years, with the cultural exchange between China and foreign countries, tofu has spread not only all over the country, but also all over the world. It is as famous in the world as China's tea, porcelain and silk. Tofu can now be bought in western Asian product markets, agricultural products markets, health food stores and large supermarkets.
People's Network-Origin of Tofu: Huainan Wang mistakenly made tofu as an elixir.
Baidu encyclopedia-tofu