50 free Tofu trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Tofu has been eaten for more than 2,000 years, and this trivia quiz covers everything from the legend of the Han prince who supposedly invented it to the Tofurky on a modern Thanksgiving table. The science questions explain how soy milk becomes curd: gypsum versus nigari, why heating denatures the proteins, what glucono delta-lactone does for silken tofu and why freezing a block turns it into a sponge. The food questions travel across Asia and beyond: mapo tofu and the pockmarked grandmother of Chengdu, stinky tofu and its months-long brine, douhua and Filipino taho, Korean sundubu-jjigae, Japanese agedashi and hiyayakko, yuba skin, okara pulp, Hakka yong tau foo, Indonesian tahu and the Burmese "tofu" that contains no soy at all. History questions cover the 965 Japanese record, the 1782 book of a hundred tofu recipes, Benjamin Franklin's 1770 letter and the world's first soy dairy in France. Every answer was verified against Wikipedia's articles on tofu and its dishes, and each question links to its source. Try our Sushi and Chinese Food quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Tofu is made by pressing the curds of what?
Coagulated soy milk
The four common textures are silken, soft, firm and extra firm.
Q 02Tofu has been eaten for roughly how long?
Over 2,000 years
It originated in China and is a traditional part of East and Southeast Asian cuisines.
Q 03Chinese legend credits which Han dynasty prince with inventing tofu?
Liu An
He also edited the Huainanzi, a compendium of Daoist, Confucian and Legalist teachings, in 139 BC.
Q 04What 1960 discovery gave support to the theory that tofu dates to the Han dynasty?
A stone mural in an Eastern Han tomb
Some scholars still argue Han-era tofu was too rudimentary to count as the real thing.
Q 05One theory says tofu was discovered by accident when ground boiled soybeans were mixed with what?
Impure sea salt
The calcium and magnesium salts in unrefined sea salt would have curdled the slurry into a gel.
Q 06A third origin theory holds that the Chinese copied milk-curdling techniques from which people?
The Mongolians
The evidence is the similarity between the Sui-era word rufu ("milk curdled") and doufu ("beans curdled").
Q 07Tofu did not become a popular food in China until which dynasty?
The Song
That dynasty ran from 960 to 1279.
Q 08Why was tofu traditionally eaten at the graves of relatives in China?
Ghosts had lost their jaws and could only eat something soft
Before refrigeration it was usually sold only in winter, since it spoiled within a day in warm weather.
Q 09Tofu first appears on record in Japan in what year?
965
It is thought to have arrived during the 8th century, but no clear records survive.
Q 10The earliest Japanese tofu document describes it offered in 1183 at a holy site in which city?
Nara
Zen Buddhist monks brought it from China and first called it "Chinese curd".
Q 11The Edo-period book Tofu Hyakuchin, published in 1782, contains what?
100 recipes
Its title literally means "one hundred tofu delicacies".
Q 12Which American founding father was the first American to mention tofu, in a 1770 letter?
Benjamin Franklin
He had encountered it in London, enclosed a few soybeans and called it "cheese" from China.
Q 13The earliest English use of "tofu", spelled "Towfu", appears in a 1770 letter by which merchant?
James Flint
An account of tofu-making had appeared in English in 1704, but without the word itself.
Q 21Why does heating soy milk make its proteins ready to coagulate?
It denatures them and exposes hydrophobic groups
Cations from the coagulant then neutralise the proteins' negative charges and they clump together.
Q 22Roughly what fraction of the tofu you eat is coagulant?
About 1 part per 1,000
Most of the calcium or magnesium reacts with soy protein and adds to the tofu's nutritional value.
Q 23Which enzyme, left active by a "cold grind", produces tofu's beany off-flavours?
Lipoxygenase
Q 14The world's first soy dairy, opened in 1908 by Chinese anarchist Li Yuying, was in which country?
France
His Usine de la Caséo-Sojaïne was also the first factory in the country to sell bean curd.
Q 15Which 1975 title by William Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi popularised bean curd in the United States?
The Book of Tofu
Before the mid-20th century tofu was little known to most Westerners.
Q 16The first tofu company in the United States was founded in what year?
1878
The term "bean curd" had been used in the US since at least 1840.
Q 17What is the traditional and most widely used coagulant for Chinese-style tofu?
Calcium sulfate, or gypsum
It is quarried from the ground, needs no refining and is the cheapest coagulant available.
Q 18Japanese nigari, used to set tofu, is a powder made mainly of what?
Magnesium chloride
It is produced from seawater after the table salt is removed and the water evaporated.
Q 19The word nigari derives from the Japanese word for what?
Bitter
Despite the name, nigari-set tofu tastes of very little.
Q 20Which acid coagulant, also used in cheesemaking, gives silken tofu its jelly-like texture?
Glucono delta-lactone
It is derived from glucose and slowly turns into gluconic acid in water.
A hot grind inactivates it, giving the bland taste most Westerners expect.
Q 24What is the Japanese name for silken tofu, meaning "silk-filtered tofu"?
Kinugoshi-dofu
Firm tofu is momen-dofu, "cotton tofu", after the cloth that drains it.
Q 25What does the Chinese term douhua, for very soft tofu pudding, literally mean?
Bean flower
It is also called "tofu brain" and is usually eaten with a spoon because chopsticks cannot pick it up.
Q 26What is the Philippine hawker snack of silken tofu with brown sugar syrup and sago pearls called?
Taho
Regional versions use sugarcane, ube or strawberry syrup.
Q 27Korean sun-dubu, the extra-soft tofu in sundubu-jjigae, is curdled with what?
Seawater or sea-salt brine
The curds stay loose and are usually sold in tubes.
Q 28The first US restaurant specialising in sundubu-jjigae opened in 1986 in which city?
Los Angeles
Beverly Soon Tofu was later joined by BCD Tofu, which grew into a national chain.
Q 29What is Chinese dougan?
Extra-firm dry tofu
It has the firmness of cooked meat and a rubbery feel like paneer, and can be sliced into noodle-like strands.
Q 30What is su ji, or "vegetarian chicken"?
Rolled or pressed thin tofu sheets, fried
It is made from baiye, a very flat extra-firm tofu about 2 mm thick.