Sweet (This week's Photo Hunt theme)

Say the word "tofu" to many a native English speaker and they'll think of something bland and unappetizing as well as famously "good for you". While the last attribute is true enough, I think that it does this type of food a disservice to think that it can't be tasty. But having seen how tofu tends to get served up in England and non-ethnic Asian sections of the U.S.A. (i.e., often pretty plainly, ungarnished and at room temperature), I understand why tofu has gotten the reputation that it does among many residents of those territories.

In much of Asia, however, tofu is a culinary treat as well as versatile item and ingredient that is part of savoury, salty, spicy (I think in particular here of the Sichuanese speciality dish called ma po tofu) and/or sweet dishes. It also is made into a drink -- known as tao chooi (trans. "[soya] bean water") in Hokkien (my mother tongue) and tao cheong (trans. "[soya] bean milk") in Cantonese -- that's sweetened by having liquid sugar mixed into it and is a staple in Shanghainese restaurants.

Apart from drinking tao chooi, my favorite way of consuming tofu is as a dessert. As a child in Penang, it was quite a treat to get a bowl of tao hwa (literally translated as "[soya] bean flower" but more regularly plus plainly known in English as beancurd) from the tofu vendor -- who often would serve up his fare in wet markets and/or from roadside stalls -- that, like tao chooi, was liberally laced with lashings of liquid sugar.

While that already may sound quite novel and sweet to those who've never had tofu as a dessert, you really ain't seen nothing yet until you come over to Hong Kong and check out what speciality dessert shops and restaurants like Sweet Dynasty do to the humble tofu! Which gets me to my photo for this week's Photo Hunt...

To sum it all up: Yes, some of the white bits floating about in the pictured dessert really is tofu; and, although it may not be readily apparent, this enticing cold dish's base and principal ingredient actually is tofu though it's true enough that it's lavishly topped with assorted fruits (including strawberries, mangoes, lychees and kiwi fruit) that have been shipped to Hong Kong from various other parts of the world. ;b