The ‘hunchback’ tofu of Tra Lam, Bac Ninh

US soybeans, Canadian soybeans

At 8 am, when I arrived at Tra Lam village (Tri Qua commune, Thuan Thanh district, Bac Giang province), 62-year-old Trinh Thi Binh was busy driving around the village asking for help with a batch of soaked soybeans because she heard that there would be a power cut at 9. Normally, her factory closes the circuit breaker at 10 am, working until 3-4 pm. For steps such as machine grinding and squeezing, a power cut meant that the whole batch of soaked soybeans must be thrown away.

After two or three times of pouring "bean curd", compressing it again and again until it is even to the mouth of the mold, Tra Lam tofu is probably the largest tofu made in the country. 10 cm long, 5 cm wide, 10 cm high, each block weighs up to 600 -700 grams. Because of their slightly distorted shape, they are also called the “hunchback” tofu.

Making beans and raising pigs used to be a popular money-making formula for Tra Lam people to raise their children, help them go to school, pass exams, or go abroad. Stone mills have been replaced by grinders, coal ovens have been replaced by boilers, but the ancestor’s old craft is rapidly disappearing.

Just like in many other tofu craft villages, the income is only VND 150,000 - 200,000/work day, the work starts late at night until the day peak, so people simultaneously quit. From hundreds of households working on the craft, the burning ovens painting the village red, now only 20 households are still holding on.

Binh's house is one of the largest workshops in the village. With 3 employees including her, her son and her sister-in-law, on average, they use 80-85 kg of soybean seeds per day to produce 250 - 270 blocks of tofu, each with a wholesale price of VND 9,000.

Asking about the present day’s soybeans, she looked in the corner of the house, pulled out a stack of packages and told me that she kept them to store rice in the harvest. There were several types of packages, in which the green one is printed with the words “GMO soybeans” but the term was not clearly stated in Vietnamese that it was genetically modified soybean. The packages were manufactured by Thanh Phat company in Yen My, Hung Yen.

“This one I used half a month ago. many years have passed since the day we had our native soybeans, now they are all imported from the United States and Canada. If it is to make tofu, Chinese soybeans are the best, but we can't handle the ‘heat’ because the price is much higher than US and Canadian beans, roughly VND 10,000/kg. People bring soybeans to offer, and I ‘scoop’ when I see it is a good deal, if it's bad, I pass. There is an agent in the village, Thoa Van, but they ‘squeeze’ y wallet dry, so I always take the stuff from outside as the current price is VND 18,000/kg”.

Blindly buying the “good” soybeans

Like Binh, Nguyen Thi La chooses to make beans during the day, from 11 am to 5 pm, unlike most other establishments in Tra Lam village. The workshop has 3 workers including herself and 2 other employees. On average they use 45 kg of soybeans, and on a day when many customers order the amount used can be up to 60 - 70 kg. The focal point of consumption is the traders in the Dau market. Due to the high purchase price of soybeans, tofu sold at a cheap price, after a day of hard work, each person only got more than VND 100,000.

“In the past, all soybeans were brought back from Cao Bang and Lang Son, since imported soybeans were present, people do not want to plant them anymore. Native soybeans are delicious, soft, flexible and easier to make tofu because they have a lot of sap, while American and Canadian soybeans are all dried, so they lose the sap, hence a drop in tofu’s quality.

“We don't have native soybeans anymore, so imported soybean it is. In the whole village, only Tai's family grow a few sao (Vietnamese measurement, equals 360 m²) of soybeans, producing more than 100 kg, but I don't know who he sold the land to. I don’t care if the packages are green, yellow, or white, the important thing is whether the seeds inside are good or bad. I usually buy from agents in Gia Binh district, Bac Ninh province, each time I get 500 - 700 kg”.

It was 11 am, but I still tried to call Nguyen Dinh Quyen to open the door because he was sleeping to make up for the night he was awake to work on the tofu blocks. In a drum containing a bunch of folded soybean packages,  I noticed a light yellow package of Phu Dat Company in Thai Binh city with “GMO soybeans” written on it but absolutely saw no explanation in Vietnamese.

He leisurely said, “The goods were used a few months ago. Every day my family uses 30 kg of beans to make tofu, so we order 300 - 400 kg each time. The seller never said where the soybean came from. The tofu comes out clean, there's no mixing here that it needs to be checked for food hygiene and safety".

After going halfway around Tra Lam village, I finally reached the Thoa Van shop, located right on the face of the road. Asking about the story of making tofu, Nguyen The Van, the shop owner, said that 10 years ago 70-80% of the villagers followed the craft, now only 10% were left. Therefore, from selling tens of tons of soybean every month, now the selling business is in a rough position.

The US soybeans are mainly sold as animal feed or crushed to water farmed crops, while Canadian soybeans are sold to make tofu. The price difference between the two types is VND 500 - 700/kg. When I showed him some pictures of soybean packages I just took in the village, he commented that most of them were of poor quality, the seller did not import directly, but got them from a warehouse somewhere.