Tofu

Well, it is my last night in Kunming, and I'm getting rather upset. I will especially miss the people - my teachers 涛涛，龙飞 and 飞飞 (for once I will use simplified Chinese for them!), and of course my wonderful, wonderful host family. They have been absolute diamonds to me, and my homestay mum made me all my favourites for my last supper: 夫妻肺片 (Husband and Wife lung slices), and a simple tofu stirfry.

Tofu is probably the most underrated and misunderstood Chinese foodstuff there is. Foreigners only seem to eat it if they are vegetarian, but it is the most wondrous wondrous stuff. I was brought up on tofu mixed with rice, the thought of it immediately fills me with cosy warmth.

However, I did want to warn people about the tofu in Yunnan and Sichuan. I first came across it on the trip to Chengdu with Caris and Rosy: after a few hours of wandering around in the mountains, we thought we would go and have a nice bowl of '豆花' which appears to be available everywhere, thinking it is just like the lovely dessert 豆腐花 common in Hong Kong (and which happens to be my mum's 拿手 dish). How wrong we were!!!

豆花 in both Sichuan and Yunnan are savoury, naturally served with chilli. In Chengdu, it appeared to be just a big slab of slightly wobbly tofu, with chilli on the side, presumably to be mixed with rice. A Kunming specialty is 豆花米线, which I definitely do not recommend: rice threads are quickly boiled, then drained, and topped with chilli sauce, preserved vegetables, peanuts, and then a big 'pet' of wobbly tofu on top. Even a tofu fan like me struggled through my bowl - bleugh!