Tofu--Interesting Random Facts

Recently, I've become aware through a few conversations just how little most Americans know about tofu.

It seems a lot of people think of tofu as some sort of meat substitute that came out of the California health craze in the 1980s.

In all honesty, I probably thought the same thing before I moved to Asia.  But I know better now, so I thought I'd help spread the knowledge.

Tofu isn't a 20th Century invention.  According to Wikipedia:

It originated in China and has been consumed in the country for over 2,000 years.^[1][2] Tofu is a traditional component of many East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines;

...and although tofu is often used as a meat substitute in America, in Asia tofu is often used as a meat supplement--that is the tofu is often cooked alongside the meat, and takes on a bit of the flavor of the meat juices.

In other words, it's not considered a food only for vegetarians in Asia.

Tofu is originally from China, where it is called "dofu".  It is called "tofu" in Japanese, however, and it is from Japanese that it came into English.

Years ago, I knew a guy in Japan who was dating a Chinese student.  She was rather upset about the nomenclature.  "It's originally from China," she said.  "So you should use the Chinese name 

dofu instead of the Japanese name tofu.  Yet you say tofu in English.  Why is that?"

I told her I didn't know.

But I've looked it up on Wikipedia just now, and according to Wikipedia:

The English word "tofu" comes from Japanese tōfu (豆腐). The Japanese tofu, in turn, is a borrowing of Chinese 豆腐 (Mandarin: dòufǔ; tou4-fu) 'bean curd, bean ferment'.^{[7][8][9][10]}

The earliest documentation of the word in English is in the 1704 translation of Domingo Fernández Navarrete's A Collection of Voyages and Travels, that describes how tofu was made.^[11] The word towfu also appears in a 1770 letter from the English merchant James Flint to Benjamin Franklin.^[12]: 73 The term "bean curd(s)" for tofu has been used in the United States since at least 1840.^[13][14]