Mapo Tofu

There has long been a well-known folk story about the origins of Mapo Tofu.

During the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, there was a small, humble eatery near Wanfuqiao outside the north gate of Chengdu. The owner’s surname was Chen, and it was his wife who did the cooking. Because she had a few pockmarks on her face, neighbors affectionately called her “Chen Mapo.” The restaurant was tiny, but smoke and aroma constantly drifted from the kitchen, and it became a popular stop for porters, cart drivers, and laborers looking for a filling, affordable meal.

Most of the diners were hard-working laborers who needed to eat enough without spending too much. Seeing that people often couldn’t afford expensive dishes, Chen Mapo wondered: why not make a simple tofu dish taste amazing? So she blanched cubes of tofu, stir-fried them with minced beef, Pixian chili bean paste, fermented black beans, ginger, garlic, and chili, and finally finished the dish with freshly ground Sichuan peppercorn powder.

And just like that, a steaming, bright-red tofu dish was “born.”

The dish was numbing, spicy, fragrant, and satisfying — yet still inexpensive. Diners loved it, and word spread quickly. People began saying:

“Let’s go eat tofu at Chen Mapo’s place!”

Over time, the name stuck —
and the dish naturally came to be known as “Mapo Tofu.”