Chapter 53: "Cold Dressed Tofu"

I am not sure if I really like this dish; I only remember that there is an unhappy story behind it. When I opened the document, I was already feeling sleepy. I planned to write it down after waking up if I still remembered the story; if I didn’t remember, that would be a lucky thing, at least allowing me to forget some sadness. Unfortunately…

The story begins like this: during the summer of my elementary school years, I lived at my grandfather's house. It was a time when the whole family often sat under the grape trellis in the yard for dinner in the evening. If the fig tree at my grandmother's house was a high and mighty idol, then the grapevines at my grandfather's house resembled a guardian deity that could protect a corner, appearing more down-to-earth. But is that really the case?

My mother is a very frugal person, and for that, she came up with many little tricks to save money. For example, when she bought shrimp as a luxury, she would deep-fry the shrimp heads, braise the shrimp bodies, and even boil the shells to make soup. So, what would she do with the dried tofu she bought? If there was any left over, she would soak it in vinegar and put it in the fridge, saying that this way the dried tofu wouldn’t spoil easily. The dried tofu is the kind that can be found at any stall selling tofu in the market, slightly salty and five-spiced, with a brown skin and a plump body. When cut open, you can see the white filling, and a bite into it feels just right. It is slightly more expensive than white tofu, but we didn’t buy it often at home.

However, compared to meat, five-spiced dried tofu is indeed much cheaper. In my mother’s words, the taste is similar, and it is much more economical than eating meat.

The dried tofu bought back was cut into segments half a finger wide, mixed with salt, sesame oil, soy sauce, and shredded green onions, and it became a dish. Occasionally, adding a few drops of chili oil made it even more delicious.

I remember one time after school, I got home early and cooked some porridge, thinking about what dish to have for dinner. When I opened the fridge, I saw the dried tofu from a few days ago soaking in vinegar, so my instinctive reaction was that we would have cold dressed tofu for dinner, and I immediately felt the craving in my stomach. So, I took the dried tofu out, rinsed it with clean water, and ate a whole piece to satisfy my hunger, thinking I would cut the rest after finishing my homework, and then put it back in the fridge.

I didn’t expect that when my mother came back from work, she said we would have cold cucumber for dinner. At first, I didn’t pay much attention, but suddenly realizing in the midst of my mother’s roar that even if I was hungry, I shouldn’t have ruined a whole plate of dried tofu! If I wanted to eat, I could just take out a piece and wash it clean; now I had to soak it in vinegar again, which was really wasteful. The more my mother spoke, the more agitated she became. At first, she scolded me in the house, then her scolding echoed in the kitchen in the yard, and finally, she simply stood in the open space of the yard and yelled at the top of her lungs.

That day, I was really foolish, only thinking about quickly calming my mother’s anger. I hurriedly stopped my homework and went to the kitchen to cook, which only led her to chase after me, scolding.

Across from my grandfather's yard was a row of family buildings for a cinema. Many times, I felt like we were little ants living in the eyes of giants; whatever each family did in their yard, the people upstairs could see clearly. That day was no exception.

I must have been around eight or nine years old then, already having some sense of self-esteem. Realizing something was wrong, I quickly tried to lead my mother back into the house or interrupt her with other things. But my mother clearly saw through my little tricks. So, her voice grew louder. She scolded me for not studying well, not doing housework well, and only knowing how to stuff things into the insatiable "black hole," truly a reincarnation of a starving ghost… As she spoke, my mother brought up many old stories.

In a small city, there are no secrets, let alone a sense of boundaries between people. In my mother’s words, knowing shame is the first step to change. So, the more I feared something, the more she liked to do it. At first, I would argue back with her, but later I stopped because I feared the slaps, fire tongs, clothes drying racks, and everything else within her reach that would follow. Seeking help could be interpreted as a more terrifying revenge. For a child who had not yet developed the ability to live independently, being hungry or having no place to stay meant death.

Clearly, I didn’t want to die at that time. A deep sense of unworthiness had been wrapping around the first half of my life.

Later, in a fit of anger, my mother made cold dressed tofu for dinner, scolding me to eat it. But for some reason, my stomach was bloated and painful, and I couldn’t fit anything in. I could only desperately stuff it in, even if it was about to come back up the next second, it was still better than her "doing it herself." Late at night, in the midst of stomach pain, I fell asleep in a daze.

Many years later, I heard people say that those with stomach problems shouldn’t eat too much tofu, as it can be hard to digest and make the stomach feel worse. When I recalled that plate of dried tofu, I insisted that the reason for my stomach pain was not my mother’s scolding, but that I shouldn’t eat it, that I wasn’t worthy of eating it. Perhaps my mother was just using scolding as a way to care for me; it was a way of expressing love.

Tofu is very cheap, and on my wandering journey, I have used it as a staple food countless times. Sometimes, a piece of white tofu sprinkled with a little salt or dipped in soy sauce is a meal. Strangely, my stomach has never felt any discomfort from eating tofu. Occasionally, it was only because I ate something that conflicted with it.

Now, dried tofu can be made into countless varieties, and some snacks are also upgraded versions of dried tofu. Many girls like to eat it, but I just can’t fall in love with it. Occasionally, when I go to street stalls to eat, if I see this cold dressed tofu in the semi-finished small cold dishes, I will deliberately avoid it. If I can’t avoid it, I will only pick it up with chopsticks and take a symbolic bite.

Time flies so fast; the little girl who ate her family’s dried tofu is now middle-aged. But she still remembers a long, long time ago when she lived at her grandfather's house, she took out a white porcelain plate with a floral edge from a green refrigerator, containing six or seven pieces of dried tofu soaked in brown vinegar. She took the plate to the faucet in the yard to wash it clean, watching the brown water gradually become clear and transparent. She put the plate back in the refrigerator, carefully picked up the top piece, and ate it while doing her homework. At that moment, her heart must have been satisfied and peaceful.

If she really did something wrong, I think it should be that she didn’t cut the dried tofu into half-finger-wide segments, mix it with vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and shredded green onions before putting it back in the fridge. This way, when her mother came back from work and saw the ready dish, she wouldn’t be angry.

If she did something else wrong, it should be that she didn’t learn to share. It was already a great blessing for her grandfather's family to lend her a pair of chopsticks; she shouldn’t have arrogantly considered herself their "family." She should have generously shared the gifts given to her by others without any reluctance on her face, such as the firecrackers and snacks bought by relatives when they took her and her brothers out shopping during the holidays. She should have realized from a very young age that nothing truly belonged to her, and even if she held it in her hand, she should have given it to her brothers the moment the relatives left. Even if her brothers threw it in the trash the next second, it shouldn’t belong to her.

What is home? What is love? In her forties, her mother roared that she was becoming more and more silent, not communicating with her family, and not being close at all. Her mother should have long forgotten that not once did she curse her for a long time at the door when she was seriously ill; even in the moment before she took her own life, she was still trying to please her mother and her maternal relatives.

She had heard countless people say: If others don’t love you, you can love yourself. What is love, and how to love? If there was nothing that truly belonged to her, how could she know what love is? From the moment her mother forced her to "dispose" of her beloved pet, she should have known that she would be destined to be without love for her entire life.

Many years later, I reunited with her, or perhaps we never left each other. In a nunnery next to Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou, we both fell silent looking at the cold dressed tofu in the vegetarian meal. It was still brown-skinned and white-fleshed, cut into half-finger-wide pieces, without shredded green onions, just mixed with salt and vinegar.

A bowl of white rice porridge, a plate of cold dressed tofu. Until the bell rang, we both didn’t remember whether we had eaten it. Perhaps we did, because wasting food is not good.

The End