Food in Our Culture
The Politics of Tofu
Do you like having silky white stuff in your mouth?
I was a vegetarian for two decades
Essentially that meant that I spent two decades bloated as fuck from various soy products.
Since I was in my twenties, I didn’t yet have the pop-up warning that says,
Are you sure you wish to consume this?
That doesn’t arrive for most people until the mid-30s, I believe.
As a result, I indulged in every fake meat I could get my hands on. From Satan to wheat gluten to textured vegetable protein to Quorn — I ate them all in excessive quantities. For twenty years, my farts stunk like a week-old dead badger in a sauna, and I genuinely thought it was normal. I had constant reflux.
Fake meats were mainly made from different isolated pigments of wheat and soy.
These days the variety has grown even more. Today is the day to be a vegetarian since you can find a whole section in the supermarket dedicated to the wanna-be meat eater.
And yeah, some people say, ‘but why don’t vegetarians just eat vegetables?’
The truth is that meat tastes fucking good, and you will struggle to find a vegetarian that doesn’t think that. For most, it is done for ethical or health reasons. How many people don’t like the taste of meat? Ridiculous.
This brings me to the object of this article: TOFU.
Ah yes, the subject of years of debate. Is it a delicate and delicious food item or solidified milky rat spunK?
It seems that Tofu in the West — gluten products aside — has become the standard meat replacement.
Perhaps it is because now the food industry refers to meat as protein, and tofu is another protein. I can’t think of another reason anyone would think it is a satisfying meat substitute. Tofu and meat don’t look, taste or smell anything like each other.
In Chinese culture, tofu isn’t seen as a replacement for meat.
A lot of their dishes serve tofu and meat together. I’ve never had it, and perhaps that is because I am brainwashed into seeing tofu as a meat replacement, so I think, ‘Why the fuck would you wanna eat the two together?’ But again, when you think about it, it makes sense that they are totally different food groups.
Isn’t tofu much more of a squished bean thing than an animal product?
I used to loath silky tofu. It would remind me of eating blancmange at school or when my Aunty Mary dropped the jelly inside an air freshener, and I tried to pick it up for her and spewed all over her carpet. I think that sloppy textures have always made me puke like a cat with a furball — until the last decade.
I used to buy firm tofu, but that crumbly fetta-like firm tofu, not the ultra compressed rubbery shite that feels like you are eating your Grandfather’s piss-stained mattress.
Now I prefer the soft stuff. You know, when they serve high-quality silken tofu on a plate covered in spicy sauce — it’s really something.
I feel like it’s the same kick people get from oysters. But I wouldn’t know cos I’ve never eaten one of the filthy motherfuckers — oysters, that is.
Tofu is generally flavourless unless you get that excellent quality shit.
Then, it’s even more flavourless. Its value lies in its texture and ability to take on other flavours like a pornstar takes on various flavours of cock.
Some people try to smoke tofu to give it its own style of flavour. But in my experience, tofu tends to tighten up like a Christmas sphincter when it gets smoked. It ends up tasting like your Grandfather’s piss-stained mattress after he has died in a house fire.
Then there are bean curd pillows. Now that shit is fucking good. I think it’s probably because they take tofu and fry the crap out of it.
In some cases, they take that brown skin off, soak it in sugar syrup and then use it to make inari which is sugar-soaked tofu skin containing sugar-soaked white rice, often with sugar-soaked seaweed salad on the top — the kind of slippery seaweed that gets right through your teef like you have just given oral pleasure to an alien.
Soy, in general, gets a bad rap because people reckon it is either genetically modified or has been grown in the Amazon rainforest.
People genuinely think that they are shredding the Amazon to make soy milk for vegetarians, and they often use it as an argument against vegetarianism.
The truth is some soy is GM. And look, the jury is out on whether it’s gonna turn you into a dead man like Prince Phillip or a superhero like Elon Musk or Espresso Man. If you eat processed or fast food regularly, you’re probably already halfway there anyway.
But that Amazon crap, it is an issue, innit?
Trouble is they are shredding this pristine ancient magical forest to lay pasture for cows and soybeans (to feed to cows).
Everyone is fucking tripping about how the Amazon is the lungs of the planet, and it’s like, we don’t even need to go that fucking far to wonder how it will or won’t benefit us as a species.
If you can’t see the problem — straight up— with massacring an ancient forest filled with rare wildlife and plant life to grow fucking beans and meat, then you need to go and get one of those Red Bull enemas that everyone is talking about.
But Frank — AAAA NO, I don’t wanna hear it.
You can’t use logic here.
If you don’t look at that situation — minus the politics and the Beautiful Mind equations and the economic rationale — and think it’s fucking crippingly insane, there is something seriously wrong with you.
In summary, do I buy tofu these days?
Never.
But sometimes I buy Tempeh which is easy to digest and not bad if crisped up with some Tamari.
Do I eat meat?
I do.
Does that make me a hypocrite?
Hmm, well, I like to think of myself as more of an addict.
It’s when you find the idea of something vile, but you do it every day because it feels so fucking good. That’s my relationship with meat — addiction.
But if someone serves tofu at an imaginary party I never attend would I eat it?
Yeah, sure, as long as it fulfils the criteria of being the correct texture with the proper flavour (like the perfect pussy).
And if you ask me, would I eat lab-grown meat?
My answer is, bring that shit on Motherfuckers. Because I am never going back to that life where all I eat is fucking tofu and gluten.
Cos vegans go on about cows warming the climate with methane, but I say anyone who eats gluten products as a meat replacement is probably doing a mighty fine job by themselves.
The meat industry is a god damn nightmare, but do I ever feel okay about chowing on some barbecue ribs or a pile of bacon or an eye fillet or some hot wings or a rack of lamb or a tasty burger or — I’m hungry now.
Well, yes and no. I’m ethically against killing animals for meat, but I’m fascinated by the fact that they are made of meat. And you have to wonder, why are they made of meat if we weren’t meant to eat them?
But then you could also say if we ARE meant to eat tofu, why is it made from tofu?
