Although I wasn’t even born when their best albums came out, I spent my entire youth listening to Siniestro Total or Ilegales. I was a punk, and if my favorite groups talked about kill hippies or they were exhorted to use soap, it goes without saying that tofu was a banned food. At the end of the day, what’s more? hippie what to eat tofu?
In reality, it’s all nonsense. There is no urban tribe that has promoted the veganism than punk, which has countless bands that carry anti-speciesism as their flag, in the 80s and today. But I was more of Captain Behind the scenes than from Crass and, although I liked the Smiths a long time later, Morrissey He always seemed like a bit of an idiot to me. ¿Meat is murder? No, thanks.
Nowadays I still listen to a lot of punk, but decades ago I grew out of the adolescent silliness of urban tribes – only the mods put up with this nonsense until old age. And my food preferences.
I have no plans to stop eating meat, and I still love a good torrezno, but I am clear that we should all reduce our animal protein intake, for health and environmental reasons, regardless of the always complex debate on animal welfare. And tofu can be a great ally in this sense.
The tofu is delicious
My prejudices about tofu were too strong. “It does not taste like anything”, he repeated over and over again. It’s true, tofu doesn’t taste like much – although it depends on its quality – but the same could be said about rice or pasta. Like these cereals, tofu tastes like whatever you put into it, but the texture it provides to the dishes is more important. The problem is that in Spain we have no tradition and we don’t know how to cook it.
I have precisely learned to use tofu as substitute for rice and pasta. And, yes, I know that rice and pasta can also be cooked with vegetables, but they are more fattening and less filling. Just what I’m trying to avoid.
Tofu is ideal as a wild card to make any meal more satisfying. Vegetable dishwhether it’s some leftover Manchego ratatouille or a very simple sautéed pepper and onion with soy sauce, which has become one of my daily dishes.
Now, it is important to cook it properly: removing excess moisture and fry it separately so that it has a crispy texturewhich is what adds the most to the dishes.
Once you get the hang of it, we have at our disposal a very healthy and versatile ingredientwhich has nothing to do with the insipid dishes we imagine.
My next goal is to learn how to prepare the soft tofu, which is harder to find, but they always have them in Asian supermarkets. This is the protagonist of mapo tofu, a spicy Chinese dish, typical of the Sichuan province, that I am looking forward to making at home. Maybe I have become a hippie without knowing it. What will be next? Wear sandals?
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