Tofu, as you may or may not already know, is bean curd. mmmm. Cooked just right, tofu can taste oh so wonderful. It basically tastes like whatever you cook it with; it is like a flavor sponge. In China, tofu is called doufu. Dou (falling tone) means bean. Fu, I'm assuming has to do with curd, but I'm not positive.

The Chinese have this favorite food of theirs that the foreigners like to call "stinky doufu." The Chinese call it Chou Doufu, but even the Chinese have started calling it stinky, even though they don't think it smells bad. Just so that you realise that the sense of scents is not completely objective, but is actually a subjective, personal experience, the Chinese think that onions smell terribly awful, and they hate it when i eat one around them. They also don't care too much for the smell of bread. But nothing compares to "stinky doufu" which was even at one time banned in the Hunnan province because it was seen as an air pollutant.

This is a completely silly, stupid poem that I wrote to describe the delicacy and my feelings toward it. Never have I had such ill feelings for bean curd.

"Thoughts on a culinary pariah"

If I were a witch with an itch for humor,
I'd make some food even worse than a tumor:
I'd take a bean and steal its curd,
I'd make its flavor like that of a turd.
I'd shape it as delicately as square can be,
With a scent for all to breath in misery;
Soak it for months in loose bowels in a tub,
Mix it with old urine, rub a dub dub!
I'd place it in the middle of an old folks home,
Then sprinkle it in the waters of the sewers of Rome;
All Zhongguoren will love it, will eat it like cake,
Every foreigner forced to see how much one can take:
This Ghastly, grossly, grizzly delicacy
Must burn in Hell for its doufu apostacy!
O! Stinky, smelly, icky doufu!
I will never in good mind bring myself to love you!

-jdw/01-