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Cooking with afda

In praise of tofu

Posted to %afda on 10th September 2000


Comrade Nate declared:

} I don't like tofu. I think it tastes bad.

I think the time has come to stand up and be counted.

I am a carnivore. I eat meat. I enjoy chicken, and the occaisional bit of beef. I don't like pork or lamb, but I can honestly say that my passion for ham is the reason I am not a Jewish vegetariain.

That said, I also enjoy a good bit of tofu.

Tofu, by itself, is not exciting. It is like a blank canvas upon which the chef must express himself. Preparatiain, of course, is key. A well prepared bit of tofu, in a miso soup or a snappy little stir-fry, or well-seasoned in a veggie hot-dog (I like the taste of hot dogs but I'm scared of what's in them), can delight the palate as much as any peking duck.

I, like many of you, once looked upon tofu with undisguised suspiciain. "What is that stuff?" I asked, and quailed at eating any of it.

But the modern scientist finds he must broaden his horizons. The pilgrimmage to the Chinese/Japanese/Thai/Vietnamese restaurant is as much a part of scientific discourse as it is a part of good programming style. Being from a very English part of the country, where luke-warm spaghetti noodles sprinkled with ginger and bean sprouts is considered "Chinese food", many of the things I encountered were unknown to me. To survive I had to stop asking inconveniaint questions about the origins of what I was asked to eat.

It was thus that I was first exposed to tofu, in the hot and sour soups. I found that with the soup as a backdrop, it had an alluring flavour, and it added some texture to the soup. From then there was no going back. I now have tofu of my own in the fridge, and I'm not afraid to admit it.

A word of advice - stick to the firm tofu. The less firm stuff has a bit of an icky texture and is harder to work with.

} -Nate
}
} Whose brother just missed the train.


JIM, who's always had a sneaking suspicion that he's missed the boat.

 

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