Tofu has a history since ancient times. It has been playing the role of popular price and aristocratic velvet for many years. This food is familiar to the poor, the emperor and all China people. Everyone has tasted tofu, so its date of birth is definitely worth finding out.

There are different opinions about the origin of tofu, but most people think that it started with Liu An, the grandson of Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Western Han Dynasty. Liu An, known as the King of Huainan, has a mother who likes to eat soybeans. One day, her mother was ill in bed. King Huainan ordered people to grind soybeans into powder and add water to make soup for her to drink, but she was afraid that the food was tasteless, so she added some salt to taste. Unexpectedly, it actually condensed into pieces, which is the formation of the initial prototype of tofu. Because Liu An was an alchemist, when the prototype of tofu was made, he used the alchemist to do experiments. After many studies, he finally found that gypsum or salt can solidify soybean milk into tofu, which is very delicious for cooking, and tofu began to spread among the people.

Liu An's title also appeared in some literatures, which provided some powerful endorsements for the origin of tofu. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu "planted few pea seedlings, and his heart was exhausted." If I knew Wang Huai's skill, I would find a spring cloth. "And said to himself," tofu from generation to generation is the skill of the king of Huainan. Li Shizhen, a medical scientist in the Ming Dynasty, recorded in Compendium of Materia Medica: Bone Nourishing Tofu that "the method of tofu began with Liu An, the king of the Southern Han Dynasty". "Miscellaneous Articles of Ming Yezi Qi Herbal Medicine" said: "Tofu was made by Liu An, the king of Huainan. "Su Ming Xi Xueping's Tofu Poem": "It is said that Huainan is the best technology, and the skin disappears to see the essence. A round of grinding nectar, boiling soup rolling snowflakes. Toad dipped in a tile has a shadow, but a golden knife cuts jade flawless. Who knows the taste, mostly on monks and Taoists? Quot Wang Sanpin's Textual Research on Ancient and Modern Events said: "Tofu began with the skill of Liu An, the alchemist of Huainan." In the early Qing Dynasty, the story of "Tofu, Liu Anzao, King of Huainan, also known as" was recorded in Tian Yu.

Some people may think that the word "tofu" did not appear in books before the Tang Dynasty, but 1960 The large portrait found in the No.1 Han tomb in Dahuting, Henan Province, contains stone carvings of tofu workshops, and the owner of the tomb was in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, which provides sufficient evidence for making tofu in the Han Dynasty.

With the different times, the name of tofu has changed many times. In the old saying, soybean is called glutinous rice, so tofu is called glutinous rice in eryali. Lu You called tofu "Li Qi" in Poem of Jiannan, and in Adjacent Song he wrote: "Shu people are famous for tofu." Because the original meaning of the word "rot" is "rot, decay or corruption", the ancients tried to avoid "rot" as much as possible, and there were many aliases such as "coming gas", "dry branch" and "no flesh and blood". According to Wang Zhijian in Ming Dynasty and Tofu in Qing Dynasty, it is said that Dai Ya, the grandson of Yuan Dynasty, didn't like the name of Tofu, so he changed his name to "Dairu". In Qing Louis, it is recorded that "Yi people call tofu a small slaughter sheep, which may have a lot to do with tofu being a cheap substitute for meat in the past.

There is also a story about the origin of tofu. There is a family of three, a couple and a mother live there. Unfortunately, the mother-in-law is not good to her daughter-in-law, and even won't let her drink ordinary soybean milk. One day, my mother-in-law left, and my daughter-in-law began to grind beans and cook soybean milk. But when the soybean milk was boiled and she was filled with joy, footsteps came from the yard. The daughter-in-law was afraid that her mother-in-law would be scolded when she came back, so she quickly picked out the whole thing. It turns out that the jar was soaked in sauerkraut before, and there was some sour soup bottom in it, so the soybean milk solidified as soon as it was poured in. The young couple barely tasted it and found that the solidified soybean milk was delicious, tender and delicious, so they named him "teasing husband", from which tofu came. Whether tofu started here or was created by Liu An, we should still thank our ancestors for their wisdom in the past to create this nutritious food today.