Yellow Mountains Hairy Tofu

Place of Origin

Huangshan, Anhui, China

Description

Hairy tofu appears in its original tofu color, covered with a dense layer of white hair, with the hair being about 3 centimeters long. After wiping off the white hair, it can be fried and eaten.

The tradition of eating hairy tofu around the Yellow Mountains has a history of at least 400 years. During the Ming Dynasty, Li Rihua (1565-1635) explicitly documented the tradition of people from Yi County consuming hairy tofu in his book "Night Talk in Humble Abode". Yi County is located in present-day Huangshan City, Anhui Province, China. However, despite the documentation, the author himself did not hold hairy tofu in high regard. His personal evaluation indicates that after personally tasting it, he only detected the rotten smell of hairy tofu and could not appreciate its charm. Nevertheless, upon reading between the lines, although he described hairy tofu unfavorably based on his personal taste, his text also serves to confirm the fact that hairy tofu had already gained a widely renowned reputation at the time. His failure to perceive its “charm” attested to the well-spread ”charm" of hairy tofu.

Technical Aspects

From the perspective of production process, hairy tofu is actually a semi-finished product of fermented tofu. The production of fermented tofu generally involves three major steps — initial fermentation with starter cultures, salt curing, and maturation fermentation. When it comes to the production of hairy tofu, it only includes the initial fermentation with starter cultures, and the tofu is ready when it grows dense white hair of about 3 centimeters long. No further steps of salt curing and maturation fermentation are required.

A side note on food safety: Throughout the world and since ancient times, there have been many enthusiasts of moldy food, and there really is no need to get all anxious at the mere mention of mold, as we know for a fact that there are molds that are safe to consume, such as Penicillium camemberti, which is used in the production of Camembert and Brie cheeses; Penicillium roqueforti, which is used in blue cheeses like Roquefort, Gorgonzola, and Stilton; and Aspergillus oryzae, used in the fermentation of soybeans to produce soy sauce and miso. As for hairy tofu, the mold involved is Mucor, which is also suitable for consumption.