She Only Cares About Cultivation

An Yi didn’t explain her past but told them clearly: "Making tofu is exhausting, we have to keep collecting firewood, grinding beans."

The two of them smiled simultaneously, "Not afraid of being tired, what we’re afraid of is being idle. The more idle we are, the more we panic and have nightmares."

An Yi took a deep breath and exhaled lightly: "Alright, since you’re not afraid of hard work, I’ll use the beans I brought to teach you how to make it. First, it’s about selecting the beans. You must choose smooth, full beans without any bad ones. The less presentable ones we keep for ourselves, but when it comes to selling, you must choose the good ones."

"If in the future someone brings beans to exchange for tofu, don’t be too picky, as long as there isn’t a huge difference. Generally speaking, one jin of beans can yield two to four jin of tofu, depending on the quality of the beans, the water, and the technique. Too soft or too hard is not good, and this ratio is something you have to slowly figure out. Sometimes, even I make mistakes, which is normal, so there’s no need to worry too much."

"A master who can yield four jin of tofu is the best of the best. Generally, getting two and a half to three jin is quite good. To get more than three jin, you’ll need to use scientific methods requiring precise measurements, including the soaking time of the beans, the amount of water used to grind the beans, the boiling time of the soy milk, the time to curdle the tofu, the amount of brine, and the skill of the tofu maker, etc. This can’t be explained in just a few words. Everyone’s results will be different, and with time and experience, you can summarize your findings."

"Also, when the tofu is just made, it will release water. The weight might be slightly more due to the water content, but the two and a half to three jin I mentioned is after the water has been drained. Some less skilled craftsmen can’t even reach two and a half jin, but even then, it won’t be less than two jin two taels. Anything less than this can’t be considered skilled." At this point, the sisters laughed along with her.

"You don’t need to worry that we’ll lose money making tofu. Though it’s true that it’s hard work and the profit margin is small, making tofu is probably the safest business. If it turns out harder, it’s tofu; if it’s softer, it’s tofu pudding; if it’s thinner, it’s tofu skin; if it’s not there anymore, it’s soy milk; if it turns bad, it’s stinky tofu. As for the remaining bean dregs, we can still make bean dreg cakes. Tell me, where could we lose money?"

"What I’m teaching you is making tofu with brine, not with plaster."

In later generations, when people hear about plaster, they immediately think it’s a chemical product, but in our lives, it’s primarily used to stabilize broken limbs, and it’s a medical material. But is using plaster to make tofu unhealthy?

This actually reflects a misunderstanding about food safety.

First of all, tofu is certainly non-toxic. Legend has it that tofu originated because when King Huainan Liu An was practicing alchemy, he accidentally added plaster to soybean milk, thus creating tofu.

Tofu didn’t become a major food until the Southern Song.

For thousands of years, it was coagulated using salt brine (and also plaster). It’s impossible that people would consume a toxic food for over a millennium without realizing it, so it must be healthy.

Tofu is a source of calcium precisely because it contains plaster, and plaster is made up of calcium sulfate and crystal water.

A lack of calcium can lead to malnutrition.

However, many people think that because it’s plaster (salt brine), it must not be good, believing it to be a chemical product.

So, what is salt brine?

Salt brine, also known as bitter brine or brine, is the mother liquor left in the salt pools after sea water or salt lake water is used to produce salt. It evaporates and cools, precipitating magnesium chloride crystals, forming brine blocks. This requires some foresight. After Japan’s surrender, she spent a lot of time in coastal cities, and her space is stocked with endless salt and salt brine. These were made with great effort, knowing that it would be difficult to buy salt in the future, so she made a lot while living by the sea.

These brine blocks, when dissolved in water, are called brine and are commonly used in Northern tofu production as a coagulant, causing the protein solution to gel.

The tofu made with salt brine as a coagulant is characterized by strong hardness, elasticity, and toughness, known as firm tofu, or Beijing tofu, hard tofu.

Therefore, salt brine is also considered a chemical product, but you should know that we can’t live without chemicals in our daily lives. The most common is salt, also known as sodium chloride.

Soda is called sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate...

Apart from these, all foods that future generations rely on in everyday life contain food additives and other chemical ingredients. To put it more plainly, from a chemical perspective, the world is made up of chemicals. Even humans can be called carbohydrates.