Tofu originates over 2,000 years ago from Shouxian County, Anhui Province. Across time the Chinese has disseminated it to different locations. The boxy tofu in South and North China is quite different especially in terms of production process. The difference in processing is bred from local geographical and cultural conditions.
Tofu originated from China over 2,000 years ago. The emergence of Tofu was quite an incident. According to Li Shizhen’s Compendium of Materia Medica, Tofu was created by Liu An, the King of Huainan in the Han Dynasty. In 164 B.C. Liu An succeed his father as the King of Huainan. He was obsessed with Taoism and everlasting elixir. Once when Liu An nurtured Dan medicine with soybean milk, he accidentally broke a bowl of gypsum which soaked the milk before it turned into something soft and creamy. It was Tofu the original. The processing method was later introduced to the households. During the Tang Dynasty, Monk Jianzhen brought the method to Japan. During the Song Dynasty, it was introduced to North Korea. In the 19th century, the increasingly connected world spread tofu to such continents like Europe, Africa, and North America.
The making difference of tofu is bred from local geographical and cultural conditions.Dipping tofu refers to the movement that turns bean milk into beancurd. People in north China usually dup it with bittern and get the hard tofu; people in south China usually use gypsum powder as the curing agent and get the juicy tofu; another coagulator is gluconic acid which help generate the tender lactone tofu.
The Chinese love for tofu isn’t just about its taste but also its nutritive and philosophical value. There is a monologue in A Bite of China, "bean is the only plant ingredients that can compete with meat in terms of protein content." For vegetarians, tofu is the perfect food. Tofu metaphorically implies asceticism, or beneficence as described by the ancients. Those who eat tofu can stand the hardness of life and go with the ebbs and tides. Look at the tofu banquet prepared by each household at Liugou village. You know it’s a banquet yet you don’t have the heart of greed.
The fascination to tofu is held by both the dinners and the chefs. In the early 1990s, a Beijing-based chef named Bai Jichang, out of his fascination for tofu, traveled around China to learn tofu cooking. He finally can make over 200 kinds of tofu dishes and was nicknamed “Tofu Bai” as he hosted tofu banquets in Beijing. "Tofu and I share something in common. I am an easy-going person while tofu is easily seasoned and molded. It can take in all kinds of flavors."
