Shengliver’s Note: A trip back to my home village in the summer made me keenly aware that the village now is not the village then. Most folk I met about the ancestral grounds were either kids whose grandparents I know, or aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles, who were in their sixties, seventies or eighties. Ways of life there are far removed from what I remember of the early 1970s, my salad days. In this blog series, Extinct Trade, the blogger will share with his readers about nine trades which have died out where his roots are.

A week prior to the Chinese New Year, every family in my village made tofu. Because of poor skills, some households would end up with bean curd that looked ugly and tasted plain. In my village, one family made tofu the year around, for that was their family heritage. According to Father, their craft dated back to days when the village had been taking shape in ancient times. The Tofu Man and our family were actually distantly related because the whole village were mostly the Wang clan.

Their tofu making was completely free of modern appliances. The beans, which had been soaked the night before, were ground into paste on a mini hand stone mill; the paste was then strained through a fine white cotton cloth, separating soya milk from the solids. Next, the milk was heated to boiling point in a wok before it was scooped into an earthenware vat. Gypsum of the right amount was weighed out on a small scale and dissolved in water. The solution was then sprinkled onto the boiled milk in the vat before a stick churned up the mixture. Soon, the milk coagulated. After curds took shape, they were scooped up and wrapped up in a cloth. Last, the resultant bundle was pressed down by a wooden board with a stone on it. Hours later, tofu was ready.

The Tofu Man was a master of his trade. Some farmers often consulted him about the tofu-making process. My father once asked him how much mineral should be applied to the tofu he was making. The master asked Father about the quantity of beans used and instantly came up with an answer. Also, even in summer the Tofu Man could keep his tofu fresh for a fortnight. At that time, there was no power and hence no modern refrigeration in the village. No one knew his trick.

Soy pulp, which was the solid residue after milk was extracted, made first-rate animal feed. In times when food was scarce, it found its way into dishes and bowls. As far as my memory goes, however, it ended up in the trough in the pigsty in my family.

I visited the Tofu Man as a boy and witnessed the tofu-making process, which was also what my father went through, making tofu at home for the New Year. Throughout the seasons, if we had guests or visitors, Mother would send me on an errand to barter soya beans for tofu at the Tofu Man’s. A handful of beans would be traded for a large cube of tofu. What he offered smelled great. One sniff, and I could not but cut a slice off the cube and eat it uncooked. Now an urbanite, I miss that taste, man!