This is a category of foods that includes, among many other soybean-based products, fresh tofu, pressed tofu, fermented tofu, Companion brand’s Red-Cooked Vegetarian Chicken (discussed under the heading Mock Meat), “salted black beans,” and “soy sauce,” all from the list above. I highlight the category here as a bow to Bill Shurtleff and Akiko Aoyagi, who through their researches and writings have done much in a few short years to improve the availability of soyfoods in America. Part of their work is to achieve a meaningful standardization of soyfood names, so that long-winded entries such as mine—which are designed primarily to get you to pick the right product from the shelf—will no longer be necessary. In their perfect world, the name bean curd will be forgotten and tofu will be used exclusively, and misleading names like salted black beans will be called soy nuggets or soft black soybeans (a topic now under discussion). Vegetarian chicken will be called Buddha’s chicken, that is, if the arms of the Chinese manufacturers can successfully be twisted. It is a noble program, already well under way, which will allow those who shop for Chinese ingredients and who cannot read Chinese to select exactly what they want based on a clear English label.
