Nobody could tell who invented fermented tofu in Shilin. What is widely spread in the folk is a romantic love legend.

Long, long time ago, there was a Sani girl named Limei living by Black Dragon Pool in Shilin County. She was so pretty, intelligent, and ingenious that many people proposed to her. However, Limei’s mother died early and her stepmother was a cunning and mean woman who wanted to marry Limei to a wealthy family for generous gifts.

In fact, Limei had long been into someone - Alu, an honest shepherd. When the stepmother knew about it, she required Alu to produce tofu with water from Black Dragon Pool to make and save money to marry Limei. Then Alu honestly worked hard to operate a tofu business at Limei's place. After 9 years’ work, Alu had made plenty of tofu as well as money, but the greedy stepmother kept saying that he had not made enough money.

On a Torch Festival, young people all went to see wrestling and bullfighting or play Sanxian Dance, only Limei and Alu sold tofu instead of playing. Unfortunately, the tofu on that day was not sold out with many pieces left over so that they could only take it home. After a couple of days, the tofu went stinky, which really worried Alu and Limei. They thought hard and had an idea: they cut stinky tofu into small pieces, mixed them with condiments including chili and star anise, sprayed liquor, added sesame oil, covered them with vegetable leaves, put them into a jar, and finally seal the jar with oil paper. Surprisingly, these tofu pieces smelled very good after some time. They named this fermented tofu for sale, and found it very popular.

Later, Limei and Alu expanded production and their business became better and better with a particular shop. Seeing this, the stepmother had to agree with their marriage, and the couple had happy life. (Collected and edited according to online information)