Tofu w/Ground Beef
Status: Made by auntie
Satisfaction: 9.
Associated with: American Born Chinese, by Gene Yang
It always amazes me how Chinese traditions can always manage to insist on certain things that don't make sense: for example (and this is the showcased example of the day), putting some form of dead animal into dishes that would be perfectly vegetarian-friendly without it. Not that the result doesn't usually end up being delicious anyway; but just know that if you're going to step into a traditional Chinese restaurant and order the tofu or eggplant thinking it's going to be a nice environmentalist gesture, you might want to ask a waiter about it first (and probably get a supercilious eyebrow waggled at you before you get an answer). Jin, the protagonist of Gene Yang's ingenious graphic novel ABC, gets this point down pat, although the whole animal rights part doesn't quite make it in there.
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