Tofu, a culinary history de Thomas Russel

 

Ce livre de Thomas Russel, « Tofu, au culinary history », édité par The university Chicago Press s’adresse aux personnes fans de cette icône gourmande de la cuisine chinoise, ou qui désirent le rédecouvrir à travers de nombreuses anecdotes historiques, de sa naissance en Chine, jusqu’à son rayonnement en Asie, puis dans le monde. Ci-après la presentation du livre par la maison d’édition.

“The surprising, spicy story of this globe-trotting vegetable protein staple.
 
To the untrained eye, there’s nothing as unexciting as tofu, normally regarded as a tasteless, beige, congealed mass of crushed, boiled soybeans. However, tofu more than stands up on its own. Reviled for decades as a vegetarian oddity, the brave, wobbly block has made a comeback. This global history of bean curd stretches from ancient creation myths and tomb paintings, via Chinese poetry and Japanese Buddhist cuisine, to deportations in Soviet Russia and struggles for power on the African continent. It describes the potentially non-Chinese roots of tofu, its myriad types, why “eating tofu” is an insult in Cantonese, and its environmental impact today.”