Later on in Chapter 4 of And China Has Hands, Wong Wan-Lee is visited by an old man trying to sell some food. Not only does the old man give Wong Wan-Lee food of good quality, he also gives him a warning. After telling his life story of immigrating to America dreaming of gold, only to be barely paid working building railroads, he tells Wong Wan-Lee to not fall into the same trap he did.
Wong Wan-Lee describes the contents of the old Chinese man’s basket: vegetables, Chinese roast pork, and bean curds. He says that the bean curds were “as soft as meat without bones.” That sounded so good, I had to research this food. This feels obvious, but before now I didn’t know that tofu was just another word for bean curds. There are many different stories about how soybean curds were invented. One tale says that they were made by accident when a man was trying to take care of his elderly parents. They could only eat soft foods so he made soybean soup for them, and changed the recipe bit by bit so they would enjoy it, first making the soybean more fine, then adding salt and reheating it, and then letting it cool. Eventually he got to the taste and texture of tofu. To anyone who thinks tofu isn’t for them, I encourage you to give it a try again. When made by the right person it is really delicious.
And China Has Hands pgs. 45-47
https://www.thespruceeats.com/tofu-history-in-chinese-cuisine-4090272
Hi Leah!
Thank you for your post. Tofu is actually my favorite protein by far (my guilty pleasure is those weird vegan chick’n strips) and its versatility is unparalleled. For some reason, the western world has adopted it as synonymous with a health food that only very “granola” people would consume. It’s funny that you brought this up as I had been watching a Korean reality TV show where one of the contestants made french “toast” using tofu!