50 Fun Facts About Tofu

Tofu is made by pressing the curds of what?

The four common textures are silken, soft, firm and extra firm.

Tofu has been eaten for roughly how long?

It originated in China and is a traditional part of East and Southeast Asian cuisines.

Chinese legend credits which Han dynasty prince with inventing tofu?

He also edited the Huainanzi, a compendium of Daoist, Confucian and Legalist teachings, in 139 BC.

What 1960 discovery gave support to the theory that tofu dates to the Han dynasty?

Some scholars still argue Han-era tofu was too rudimentary to count as the real thing.

One theory says tofu was discovered by accident when ground boiled soybeans were mixed with what?

The calcium and magnesium salts in unrefined sea salt would have curdled the slurry into a gel.

A third origin theory holds that the Chinese copied milk-curdling techniques from which people?

The evidence is the similarity between the Sui-era word rufu ("milk curdled") and doufu ("beans curdled").

Tofu did not become a popular food in China until which dynasty?

That dynasty ran from 960 to 1279.

Why was tofu traditionally eaten at the graves of relatives in China?

Before refrigeration it was usually sold only in winter, since it spoiled within a day in warm weather.

Tofu first appears on record in Japan in what year?

It is thought to have arrived during the 8th century, but no clear records survive.

The earliest Japanese tofu document describes it offered in 1183 at a holy site in which city?

Zen Buddhist monks brought it from China and first called it "Chinese curd".

The Edo-period book Tofu Hyakuchin, published in 1782, contains what?

Its title literally means "one hundred tofu delicacies".

Which American founding father was the first American to mention tofu, in a 1770 letter?

He had encountered it in London, enclosed a few soybeans and called it "cheese" from China.

The earliest English use of "tofu", spelled "Towfu", appears in a 1770 letter by which merchant?

An account of tofu-making had appeared in English in 1704, but without the word itself.

The world's first soy dairy, opened in 1908 by Chinese anarchist Li Yuying, was in which country?

His Usine de la Caséo-Sojaïne was also the first factory in the country to sell bean curd.

Which 1975 title by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi popularised bean curd in the United States?

Before the mid-20th century tofu was little known to most Westerners.

The first tofu company in the United States was founded in what year?

The term "bean curd" had been used in the US since at least 1840.

What is the traditional and most widely used coagulant for Chinese-style tofu?

It is quarried from the ground, needs no refining and is the cheapest coagulant available.

Japanese nigari, used to set tofu, is a powder made mainly of what?

It is produced from seawater after the table salt is removed and the water evaporated.

The word nigari derives from the Japanese word for what?

Despite the name, nigari-set tofu tastes of very little.

Which acid coagulant, also used in cheesemaking, gives silken tofu its jelly-like texture?

It is derived from glucose and slowly turns into gluconic acid in water.

Why does heating soy milk make its proteins ready to coagulate?

Cations from the coagulant then neutralise the proteins' negative charges and they clump together.

Roughly what fraction of the tofu you eat is coagulant?

Most of the calcium or magnesium reacts with soy protein and adds to the tofu's nutritional value.

Which enzyme, left active by a "cold grind", produces tofu's beany off-flavours?

A hot grind inactivates it, giving the bland taste most Westerners expect.

What is the Japanese name for silken tofu, meaning "silk-filtered tofu"?

Firm tofu is momen-dofu, "cotton tofu", after the cloth that drains it.

What does the Chinese term douhua, for very soft tofu pudding, literally mean?

It is also called "tofu brain" and is usually eaten with a spoon because chopsticks cannot pick it up.

What is the Philippine hawker snack of silken tofu with brown sugar syrup and sago pearls called?

Regional versions use sugarcane, ube or strawberry syrup.

Korean sun-dubu, the extra-soft tofu in sundubu-jjigae, is curdled with what?

The curds stay loose and are usually sold in tubes.

The first US restaurant specialising in sundubu-jjigae opened in 1986 in which city?

Beverly Soon Tofu was later joined by BCD Tofu, which grew into a national chain.

What is Chinese dougan?

It has the firmness of cooked meat and a rubbery feel like paneer, and can be sliced into noodle-like strands.

What is su ji, or "vegetarian chicken"?

It is made from baiye, a very flat extra-firm tofu about 2 mm thick.

What happens to tofu when it is frozen and thawed?

Ice crystals leave layered cavities and protein-protein bonds make it firmer and chewier.

Japan's traditional freeze-dried tofu is named after which mountain?

The method was supposedly discovered by accident when tofu was left outdoors in winter.

Stinky tofu is traditionally fermented in what?

Traditional fermentation takes months; factory versions soak for a day or two just to add the smell.

Legend says Wang Zhihe, a Qing-era scholar, turned to selling stinky tofu after failing what?

Left with unsold tofu, he cut it into cubes and stored it in an earthen jar.

What gives red pickled tofu its colour?

The rice is cultivated with the mould Monascus purpureus.

Mapo tofu comes from which Chinese province?

Its sauce is built on douban chilli-bean paste and douchi fermented black beans, usually with minced beef.

What does the "mapo" in mapo tofu refer to?

The dish is traced to the Chen Mapo restaurant in Chengdu, opened in the 1860s or 1870s.

Tofu skin, or yuba, forms how?

Because no coagulant is used, it is not technically tofu at all.

Okara, the pulp left over from making soy milk, is known in Chinese by a name meaning what?

It is mostly fed to animals but also goes into Korean kongbiji jjigae and Japanese ice cream.

Burmese "tofu" is made from what?

It sets like soft polenta rather than being curdled, and the Shan version uses yellow split pea flour.

Sweet "almond tofu" contains no soy; what is it usually set with?

Egg tofu, sesame tofu and peanut tofu are other soy-free foods that borrow the name.

What is Japanese hiyayakko?

Its winter counterpart is yudofu, simmered in kombu dashi with cabbage or green onion.

Aburaage, the thin fried tofu pouch, is best known as the wrapper for which sushi?

Thicker deep-fried tofu is called atsuage or namaage.

Which people created yong tau foo by stuffing tofu because they lacked wheat flour for dumpling skins?

Nyong means the act of stuffing in the Hakka language.

The Indonesian word for tofu, tahu, is borrowed from which Chinese dialect?

Tahu Bandung is a yellow tofu coloured with turmeric.

Central Java's tahu bacem is boiled in what before frying?

Once the liquid evaporates the tofu is fried golden brown, moist but firm, sweet and spicy.

Where does the Tofurky roast, introduced in 1995, come from?

Turtle Island Foods' very first product was actually tempeh.

Soybeans were domesticated in north-central China roughly how long ago?

Brazil and the United States now lead world production, and three-quarters of the crop feeds livestock.

Tofu production has one of the lowest land needs of any protein food: about how much land per 1,000 kcal?

It also emits about 1.6 kg of CO2 per 100 g of protein, among the lowest of any food.

Which Ming dynasty polymath described tofu-making in the Compendium of Materia Medica?

His 1596 compendium also repeats the attribution of tofu to a Han prince.