Chòu dòufǔ / Smelly bean curd (Hong Kong / Taiwan)

Bean curd, or tofu as it is more commonly known in the West (after the Japanese pronunciation for the Chinese version dòufǔ / “bean rot”), comes in many forms:  

soft — almost jelly-like; 

firm — slightly softer than soft cheese; 

quite firm — the texture of firm cheese; 

spongy — deep-fried.  

The list runs and runs.  

They are usually very bland, to the point of boring, on their own, but very versatile in the range of flavours and textures when cooked with different ingredients and different sauces.  I was familiar with bean curd in their different guises, as they were readily available in the markets in Singapore and in cooked dishes at roadside stalls and in restaurants.  Chòu dòufǔ, however, I’d never heard of until I went to work in Taiwan.

On my way to Taipei in December 1974 to start my two-year contract with Conoco Taiwan, I stopped over in Hong Kong for one night, arriving at mid-day on Saturday and leaving at mid-day on Sunday.  

Wandering around the streets and back alleys after sundown, I came across a roadside stall, parked at the junction of a back street and an alleyway.  It looked like he was selling some kind of cooked food.  I caught a strong whiff of something like bad drains, and thought, “What a stupid man, positioning his food stall by this smelly drain.”

A week after I started working in Taipei, my flatmate took me into the cinema area of central Taipei, to show me around.  At one point, just as my nostrils detected a bad pong in the air, my flatmate said, “Oh, can you just wait for me.  I must go and buy something to take home,” and rushed off.  A few minutes later, she walked back to me, bringing this nasty pong with her.  I recognised it as the same smell I’d detected by the roadside stall in that Hong Kong alleyway.  

It was the popular chòu dòufǔ dish, which is bean curd allowed to ferment a bit with as much water pressed out as possible, then deep fried.  The end product is crispy on the outside but pongy and spongy on the inside.  Rather like smelly cheese and marmite, chòu dòufǔ is loved and hated in equal measure, depending on whom you approach.

Chòu dòufǔ means “smelly bean curd”, and boy, does it live up to its name to the nostrils.  

What’s interesting is that the Chinese don’t even try to disguise it by using a deceptive name*.  What’s even more interesting is that Chinese consumers are not put off by the name.

* Restaurant menus in the 60s in Singapore (maybe Hong Kong and Taiwan too) used to have very flowery names for their dishes.  A dish might be called “Phoenixes dancing among the clouds”, with the phoenix being chicken meat and the clouds being tree fungus (or Jew’s ear, called wood ear 木耳 mù’ěr in Chinese).