Jiangsu Cuisine · FFET10080
Gansi (Shredded Dried Tofu)
The Qingbai Leichao records that Yangzhou tea drinkers took gansi with their tea, fine shreds cut from pressed tofu.
A large lion's-head meatball rests on napa cabbage leaves in a clay pot, a bowl beside it holds hair-fine braised tofu threads with shrimp and ham strips, and a squirrel-cut mandarin fish is glazed with sweet-and-sour sauce.
The regional cooking of Jiangsu, divided into the Jinling, Huai-Yang, Su-Xi and Xu-Hai style areas.
The Qingbai Leichao, published in 1916, says in its entry on eating gansi while sipping tea: "The people of Yangzhou love to sip tea and go to the teahouse early in the morning." It adds that Yangzhou tea is, as a rule, taken with gansi, which "can also fill the stomach", and that gansi is pressed tofu "cut into fine threads".