Bean Curd Dishes

China’s alternative to dairy products, and an invaluable staple, especially for vegetarians, is bean curd (doufu in Mandarin, dowfu in Cantonese and tofu in Japanese). It is made from soy bean (Glycine max), one of the five staple cereals grown in China since the Zhou dynasty (11th century–221 BC). As a source of protein, soy bean outweighs not only all other crop plants, including rice, wheat, millet and barley, but also all animal meat, including beef. Whereas soy bean contains 57.6 g of protein per 100 g, lean beef of the same weight contains only 20.3 g and silverside beef 32.9 g. But although economical and nutritious, soy bean, unlike rice, is not easily digestible in its simply cooked form. The solution to this problem was found in the invention of bean curd, the ivory white, milky curd which results from processed soybeans.