So, first: I am thinking about Japan. Little bite-sized, soy-based, meat-textured oddments of industrial manufacture… not Japan, or Japanese for that matter (you sick puppies, all…), but chickenless chicken nuggets. My entire meal– just eaten– was taken up in a lost reverie about what small, convenient, and strange foodstuffs it must be possible to buy in Japan, a land portrayed as technologically efficient, rather taken with the small scale, and absolutely mad about packaging.

I recall, while living in Boston, my various sojourns through Chinatown– which did have a small but significant Japanese presence– and drinking jelly sodas, red-bean or avocado milk-shakes, and being the only one in my little group who was willing to eat something with its eyes still attached. (That is interesting– I am squeamish when it comes to raw onions, but am willing to put an eyeball or two in my stomache :). I wonder from what small, styrofoam package I might be spooning tasty ocean-derived substance, were I standing in Tokyo.

Contrary to popular misconception, I began eating tofu when I first came to San Diego: in fact, I would (after kung fu practice) often eat raw slices of the ol’ curd on bread with only ketchup and mustard, in order to get some protein in my system. Now I’ve heard several declamations concerning tofu, distilled down to a couple of troublesome presentiments: 1) that males who eat a lot of tofu end up having smaller brains, and 2) that tofu was invented to curb sexual appetites. On the first, I have little to say– there is a study that states exactly that; however, it is important to note that the largest brain was found in a man named Cromwell, and he was an idiot– the IQ classification scheme from which we derive so many of out juicy insults.

On the second note, I did some poking around, and here is a nice, condensed version of the legendary history:

According to Chinese legend, tofu was invented by accident in the Western Han dynasty (206 B.C. to A.D. 8), when the gluttonous feudal lord, Lu An ordered his cook to add salt to soybean milk for flavor and unwittingly created tofu. After some experimentation, Lord Lu discovered that cooked tofu was particularly tasty, and it soon became a popular dish among the public. By the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618–907), tofu was introduced to Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. Due to its popularity, tofu started being sold pre-packed in Japan in the 1960s.

Now, interestingly, Sylvester Graham– whose home is now a restaraunt in Northampton, Massachusetts, the ‘stomping grounds’ of my youth– was of the mind that a vegetarian lifestyle was a more healthy lifestyle, especially in regards to the sexual appetites:

All kinds of stimulating and heating substances; high-seasoned food; rich dishes; the free use of flesh (meat)�; all more or less� increase the concupiscent excitability and sensibility of the genital organs.

It is said he “believed that ill health was due to sexual excesses � erotic dreams, masturbation or sexual intercourse more than once a month”. Now, tofu hadn’t reached the states by this time, so it wasn’t included in his hype, but the now-famous Graham Cracker was…