Now in my thirties, I have clear
memories of curling up on my grandfather’s lap, back when I was a small child.
He’d sit on a old wooden bed and smoke a china bowl pope, his ancient shriveled
hands breaking grilled tofu into pieces and dipping the morsels into salt.
As a child, I thought that the
tofu chinks looked unappealing, but the adults seemed to enjoy eating them. It
was common to see cylclo drivers eating this dish by the roadside during their
breaks at the time Hai Phong still had many flamboyant trees and low small
houses. If I shut my eyes I can still smell the scent of grilling tofu.
Even today grilled tofu is still
offered in cheap beer bar, where customers enjoy its pungent taste. Tofu is
used in all sorts of ways. Dried boiled or steamed. This ingredient however is
rarely served at feasts or fancy dinners.
Most Vietnamese people consider
tofu to be humble fare. It is cheap and readily available. In Asia, people have
been making food from soy beans for century. Tofu and other soy products are
associated with devout Buddhists, who are vegetarian for religious reasons. Soy
products are used to make meat substitutes that sometimes look and taste just
like meat.
Visit any market in Vietnam and
you will see women selling Tofu out of flat baskets. Shoppers come to know who
make the best tofu and popular vendors sell out early. In Hanoi, Dau Mo (Tofu
from Mo Market) is considered a specialty, like basil from Lang Village or soy
sauce from Ban Village.
The Tofu makers in Mo Village
have their own secret, although all tofu contains similar ingredients. Perhaps
the tofu in Mo Village observe better standards of quality control, using
better ingredients and refusing to cut corners to obtain a short term profit.
Making Tofu is time consuming. Producers are up most of the night in order to
get their tofu to market at dawn. First one must grind the soy beans then
filter them before cooking, cooling packaging compressing and peeling the
resulting tofu. Each step requires careful and experienced hands.
Today, the old villages of Ke Mo
are but a memory. The streets feature narrow shop-house and high rises. Even Mo
Market is long gone, having been demolished to build a shopping centre. Food
Lovers in Hanoi, however still recall the excellent of Mo tofu
Tofu Makers produce a range of
products. The output of their first step of production is Tao pho, a white,
condensed pudding that is serve as a dessert with sweet syrup. Very popular
with women, this is a good snack on a hot summer day. In northern Vietnam, Tao
Pho sellers often ride bicycles with a barrel of Tao Pho behind them. The
vender uses a flat spoon to ladle thin layers of Tao pho into a bowl before
adding syrup.
Today as people are increasingly
affluent, the more sophisticated Japanese style of Tofu is gaining popularity.
The purest product of the tofu cooking process this type of soft tofu may be
found on buffet tables and at fancy feasts. In my view, this type of tofu is
too soft, breaking apart as soon as one takes a bite. For daily fare, I prefer
the ordinary, traditional Vietnamese tofu.
Some afternoons, I sit at a
roadside restaurant under a flamboyant tree and enjoy the rich taste of grilled
tofu flavored with turmeric. This dish never fails to remind me of my
childhood. Good food need not be expensive. Good food is food that is eaten at
the right time and place and that makes you feel good
This article is written by Lan
Nguyen, from Vacation to Vietnam. For original article and more information
about Vietnam Travel News, please visit
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