Suoh Lien Dah Woo (Tofu)

The ancestor of the Lau Clan, Liu Ann (Lau Ang), grandson of Liu Bang, invented tofu.

During the early days, tofu was made by special people in the villagers. These hawkers would walk from one village to another until all their tofu was sold. They did not make tofu every day as the market was very small.



My maternal grandmother's god son, Sung Nung, was a tofu maker and he supplied the village(s) with tofu whenever he was between building projects (He was a carpenter).

It was not easy to make a living from tofu, so later in order to support a family he had to move his wife and baby boy to the timber camp where he worked as a logger.  Those were the days when an illiterate China born migrant had to live with his wits and sheer physical strength to make a living for a growing family. He later became a cook too, with the help of his wife, my mother's good friend.

A square piece of tofu looks good on a dish, Do you remember that firm tofu was not sold by weight but by the slice, patterned by the wooden cover, which pressed the tofu down during the making? Each portion thus patterned was then called a LIEN.

So when we were sent out to buy tofu in the olden days, we would be told by our mother to buy One lien or two lien of firm tofu.