Stinky Tofu.
In
What the Stink Is All About, Walter Nicholls explains that chou dofu is made by marinating tofu squares in a basic brine that is made with a combination of long-fermented vegetables; the bean curd develops a unique, spongy consistency, and a characteristic smell. It's usually then deep-fat fried, although 獨臭之家 in
Taipei serves cold, raw stinky tofu, and once in Taiwan my wife stir--fried it. Not a huge success.
As H. M. CHEUNG and some other Hong Kong scientists have
written,
"This stinky flavor and other thermally generated aromatic compounds vaporize during deep-fat frying to produce the typical odor of chaw tofu....[These odors] generally possess unpleasant, medicinal, putrid, fecal and rancid odor." Fecal? That's a little strong. Anyway, a lot of us like it.
