The Universal Language of Tofu

In a post-Babel world of communications chaos, let food do the talking

A couple of weeks ago I checked Spotify to see if anything interesting had dropped in the Chinese Studies section of the New Books Network podcast series and an electric jolt went through my body: the newest book was Tofu: A Culinary History, by Russell Thomas. I mashed the play button so hard I bruised my finger. Readers who have been following my umpteen-part series on the soybean will no doubt understand why!

About ten minutes in, my excitement only grew when Thomas mentioned that the great Japanese scholar of Chinese food Osama Shinoda had theorized, on the basis of the etymology of a word once used for tofu in Sichuan, that the origins of tofu might possibly be traced back to the introduction of cheese-making methods into southwest China.

A Sichuanese origination story for tofu? Be still, my culinary-archaeological heart!

The word is “liqi.” I have yet to track down the Chinese characters for liqi, but according to Thomas, Shinoda speculated that it is a kind of “loan word” -- a phonetic representation of a foreign word, possibly spoken by the peoples living to the south and west of Sichuan. One trail leads all the way back to the Sanskrit word for “curds” -- dadhi (दधि), -- raising the titillating possibility that ancient cheese-making technology traveled all the way from India to Sichuan via what is sometimes called the southern silk route, or Tea Horse Road.

The process by which tofu is manufactured from soybeans is quite similar to how cheese is made, but culinary historians agree that cheese is far more ancient than tofu, so it certainly makes sense that the techniques involved in cheese production would spread across the world and adapt to local circumstances.

I’m not sure the Sichuan angle is a provable hypothesis. Tofu does not lend itself well to archaeological preservation, and cheese-making methods could just have easily first entered northwestern China via dairy-loving Central Asian nomads. But I look forward to further revelations; as Russell Thomas said in the podcast: “Watch this space!”

In the meantime, I am reminded once again about the promiscuous abandon with which food and food-making techniques cross cultural and linguistic borders. I’ve written about this previously with respect to rice, and have referenced multiple times the theory that the complexity of Sichuan’s cuisine is a consequence of internal migration to Sichuan from multiple provinces of China following the mass depopulation of Sichuan during the Ming-Qing transition.

Food translates well; better than language, actually.

Over the last few months, as I’ve been learning about universal languages and contemplating the biblical tragedy of the toppling of the Tower of Babel, I’ve been wrestling with a gnarly translation problem that keeps popping up as I continue my engagement with the thoroughly engrossing 1930s wuxia epic novel Swordsmen of the Shu Mountains. (Which could just as easily be called Swordswomen of the Shu Mountains, since it is jam-packed with lethally-skilled heroines who use their swords to fly through the sky and are just as chivalrous and mighty as their male peers.)

The novel has never been translated, and I like to amuse myself by imagining I could bring it to life in an English version. One problem (among many) is the question of how to translate the unique phrases used to describe the elaborate kung fu moves or sword-fighting techniques specific to each hero or heroine or villain or villainess.

If you translate these phrases literally, they do not sound cool. They are completely ridiculous. So that’s one issue. Another is that many of these moves and techniques don’t exist in the real word – they are figments of the novelist’s imagination, concoctions mean to evoke kung fu wizardry. There is no firm ground on which to stand your translation. The best you can do is try to evoke what the novelist is evoking; a task fraught with pitfalls when you are moving between different cultures.

I’ve done some investigation of how professional translators have approached this topic – it is, naturally a huge issue for people working on the enormously popular wuxia novels of Jin Yong (aka Louis Zha). One common strategy is simplification, which is understandable, but regrettable. Something precious always gets lost in the dumbing down process. But even more problematically, there is just no way that words constructed via the Roman alphabet can perfectly evoke the meaning summoned by written Chinese characters. This is an unalterable reality of our post-Babel existence.

Food does not have any Babel problems. Food is the real universal language. When you bite into a chili pepper, that capsaicin jolt is translated perfectly note for note, from the highlands of Mexico to the mountains of Shu. Mapo doufu doesn’t waste time “evoking” anything; its overwhelming flavor attack makes its case with absolute comprehensibility. My Szechwan Chicken Wings convert unbelievers into the faithful not through missionary dogma or force of arms or mystical epiphany, but through the undeniable gospel of salivary glands. When someone cooks us something that gives us pleasure, we understand each other. I can’t ever know for sure what’s in your heart, but I have no doubts about how my stomach feels.

My daughter once described me as someone who demonstrated their love for others via cooking them food. I am realizing just now that one reason I enjoy throwing dinner parties in which I spend the entire evening in the kitchen juggling woks and rarely having meaningful conversations with any of my guests is because my food is doing all my talking, far more fluently and persuasively and meaningfully than any mere words can convey. This is true communion. When we share food across cuisines, across borders, across religious and political differences, we bind ourself into one community.

This is the universal language of food; the best alphabet in the world can only pretend to its power.

I hope all my readers get to eat something tasty over the holidays. See you in the New Year.