Huainan Tofu Banquet 淮南豆腐宴

What is on the table

Wu, a chef who has spent most of his working life in catering and studies tofu cooking, says every dish in the banquet is made from bean curd and is good to look at, good to eat and healthy. Tofu dumplings (豆腐水饺), furong tofu (芙蓉豆腐), chrysanthemum tofu (菊花豆腐) and whitebait stewed with tofu (银鱼炖豆腐) are among the tofu dishes he has long studied, and he aims to keep the traditional dishes while adding new ones.

Around Mount Bagong (八公山), more than 300 dishes for health-themed tofu banquets (养生豆腐宴) have been developed, alongside a folk-culture street in a tofu village.

How the tofu is made

In the Mount Bagong area, below the mountain and beside the Huai River (淮河), tofu makers work through selecting the beans, soaking, grinding, squeezing out the soy milk, boiling, setting it with coagulant (点膏) and pressing (压单). The area lies in China's high-protein soybean zone and has springs that never run dry, such as Yulu Spring (玉露泉) and Xiyun Spring (洗云泉). A local producer describes the finished curd as fine and tender like jade and smooth in the mouth.

Where it comes from

Huainan is known across China as the 'hometown of tofu' (豆腐之乡). Tradition traces tofu to Liu An (刘安), Prince of Huainan in the Han dynasty, who by legend invented it during his long years of Taoist practice and elixir-making. In 2014 the traditional tofu-making technique submitted by Huainan entered the fourth national list of intangible cultural heritage, and the Farmers' Daily (农民日报) report records Huainan as the only national-level protection area for that technique.

Mount Bagong town has helped host more than ten China Huainan Tofu Culture Festivals (中国淮南豆腐文化节), with tofu cookery contests among the events, and visitors there can take part in making tofu.

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