Oh my hell, what's that smell?

By guest-blogger Martin Vaughan

It was a breezy Singapore night of the Mid-autumn festival and I was strolling through my neighborhood enjoying the holiday atmosphere. There were rows of hawkers selling cut-rate shoes and toiletries, families sporting the matching silks of their post-Ramadan celebratory get-up, rather dilapidated carnival rides that nonetheless didn’t fail to light up the faces of dozens of kids weaving through the crowd.

Then it was like a punch in the gut: my eyes watered, my throat got tight, I began coughing uncontrollably, looking around wildly for the source of the odor that had invaded my head. It was a stench at once intense and completely unfamiliar. Was it some kind of animal? A pile of rotting garbage that had caught fire? A napalm attack? To what subterranean circle of olfactory torment had I died and been condemned?

The culprit was a purveyor of stinky tofu, a local delicacy prepared by soaking bean curd in rotting milk, vegetables and meat. Then the stuff is deep-fried so all the neighborhood can enjoy its putrid aromas. And my friends, it’s not called stinky tofu for nothing.

Along the spectrum of unfortunate odors there are those that cause the nose to wrinkle only slightly, the mouth to turn down subtly at the corners. A musty closet, a mildewed washcloth. Most body smells are only mildly offensive this way (except for you, Rodney Jones, you are in a different category!) Also in this group I would put the local favorite fruit durian – which emits a sulfurous smell that reminds me of propane gas.

Then there are the overpowering smells, the ones that invoke disgust and maybe even queasiness. The feeling you city slickers get when in the vicinity of a pigsty. The Tupperware container with remnants of ham and lentil soup that had been forgotten for three days at the bottom of your work bag. That special corner of the stairwell or elevator that for unknown reasons has been christened by a series of anonymous pee-ers.

Last is the smell that is just truly sinister. The one that penetrates to the fight-or-flight center of your reptile brain, the one that sets millions of tiny messengers throughout your nervous system screaming, Get away! Put a couple football fields between yourself and that reeking mass and DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PUT ANY OF IT INTO YOUR MOUTH.

What quirk of evolutionary biology allows Asian stinky tofu-eaters to override these very sensible impulses? I have no understanding. What does the horrid stuff taste like? Ask someone with bigger stones than I’ve got. Am I a coward? Sure, but I will note that it is the only food that even Anthony Zimmern, of the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods, could not choke down.

 

mmmm... open wide.

The kids went wild for these rinky-dink rides

UPDATE: When I went to get a picture of the stinky tofu guy, he offered me some. I was scared, but what could I do? I didn't want to insult the dude. Thankfully, it tasted nowhere near as bad as it smelled. It tasted like . . . tofu, with a little ripe edge to it, like sharp cheddar cheese. It is served with a sweet and spicy chili sauce that is a nice complement to the gaminess of the tofu.

I ate three squares. The rest is probably still sitting in the bottom of the dumpster being avoided by cats and other garbage-pickers.