Mápó dòufu–麻婆豆腐
Nowadays, “Chen Mapo Dofu” restaurants open at several locations in Chengdu, with one on Xiyulong St. and another near the Qingyang Gong Temple to serve the best version. In 2005, the restaurant near Qingyang Gong Temple was burned down in a fire.
Mapo tofu( Chinese: 麻婆豆腐; Pinyin: Mápó dòufu) is a popular Chinese dish from the Sichuan province where is known for its spicy food, and probably the best known Chinese dishes in western world. It is a combination of tofu (bean curd) set in a spicy chili- and bean-based sauce, typically a thin, oily, and bright red suspension, and often cooked with fermented black beans and minced meat, usually pork or beef. Variations exist with other ingredients such as water chestnuts, onions, other vegetables, or Judae’s Ear (aka Jelly Ear, a mushroom).
The full name of Mapo doufu is “Chen Mapo Doufu”, where “Chen” is the family name of inventor’s husband, but people normally shorten it to “Mapo Doufu” for easier memorizing. Ma stands for “mazi” (Pinyin: mázi) which means a person disfigured by pockmarks or leprosy. Po (Chinese 婆) translates as “old woman, crone”. Hence, Ma Po is an old woman whose face was pockmarked, and “Doufu” is the Chinese phonetic symbol which stands for tofu. It is thus sometimes translated as “Pockmarked-Face Lady’s Tofu”.
Legend says that the pock-marked old woman (má pó), Fuchun Chen’s wife, was a widow who lived in the Chinese city of Chengdu. Due to her condition, her home was placed on the outskirts of the city. By coincidence, it was near a road where traders often passed. Although the rich merchants could afford to stay within the numerous inns of the prosperous city while waiting for their goods to sell, the poor workers would stay in cheaper inns scattered along the sides of roads on the outskirts of the ancient city. These poor workers, or heavers, earned their lives by transporting edible oil from workshops to restaurants. Often they brought some tofu and beef and ask the pock-marked woman to prepare it for them. As time went by, the pock-marked woman created a special and unique way to cook tofu and her restaurant became well known of her tofu. Someone then named the tofu she cooked as Mapo tofu, which means tofu cooked by the pock-marked women. Another less widely accepted explanation stems from an alternative definition of “ma, 麻”, meaning “numb”: the Sichuan peppercorns used in the dish numb the diner’s mouth.
