Hengshan Handmade Tofu 衡山豆腐

How it is made

Turning soybeans into fried tofu takes several hours. Xin Hunan lists the steps: soaking the beans, grinding, filtering, boiling the soy milk, blending, filling the boxes, pressing, cutting into blocks and frying. Getting the tofu blanks right and controlling the oil temperature are the skilled parts. Workers start grinding at four in the morning, fry the blanks once they are formed, and buyers come for their stock from around seven. The white, fine-textured blocks turn over in the hot oil and come out golden all over.

The village's tofu plant makes three products, nearly all by hand: fried tofu, firewood dried tofu ("柴火香干") and fermented tofu ("豆腐乳"). Demand for fried tofu rises after the start of winter.

Where it comes from

Huangni lies in the northwest of Xinqiao town, where three cities and four counties meet, and has made tofu by hand since long ago. Xin Hunan credits the reputation of Shidifang fried tofu to clean mountain spring water, well-chosen beans and the traditional craft. A village cooperative runs the Shidifang tofu plant, and more than twenty traditional hand-made tofu workshops around it now form a street of tofu shops, with stalls every few metres where passing travellers buy fried tofu. Restaurants in Loudi (娄底), the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan area and Guangzhou also buy their supplies here.