Shared Flavors , Shared Memories
To Stink or Not to Stink
Some foods dare you before they feed you. Stinky tofu did both and in the process, taught me how openness (and love) can sometimes smell strange at first.
Some foods dare you before they feed you. Stinky tofu did both and in the process, taught me how openness (and love) can sometimes smell strange at first.
Taipei is a food lover’s dream, but not a gentle one — it dares you. Choices spill from every corner, sizzling, steaming, slurping. The air is thick with flavor. And then, out of nowhere, a smell hits you. Sharp, sour, unmistakable. I thought it was a sewage leak.
But it wasn’t. It was stinky tofu a local favorite known as chòudòufu (臭豆腐) with a smell that announces itself before you even see the stall.
I first tried it while falling in love with a man who has since become my husband. I watched him walk through that crowded market with genuine curiosity, trying everything offered, including the tofu that nearly made us both gag.
But what struck me most was how he approached it: with respect. No jokes. No dramatics. Just the quiet belief that if something matters to someone else, it’s worth honoring.
Smell is primal. One of our oldest senses, essential to survival. It warns us of danger (smoke, rot), but it also comforts us: the smell of rain on dry pavement, fresh bread, backyard barbecue. A single scent can bring us back decades or ground us in a moment.
Fermented foods often have the strongest smells. To some, they signal rot. To others, they signal pride. To an unfamiliar nose, these aromas can feel like a dare. But to those who grew up with them, it’s simply the smell of home.
I remember growing up hearing Koreans apologize for the smell of kimchi (김치), a scent so normal to us, yet often described as unpleasant by Westerners. Many Koreans became self-conscious about it, worried it would mark them as different or impolite.
Even now, I still hear stories. A friend recently came over to cook for me, and the first thing she asked was whether my neighbors ever complain about food smells. She had just had an uncomfortable encounter in her own building, someone knocking on her door to complain that the hallway “smelled like curry .”
And it’s not just strangers. These conversations around smell happen inside families too, often humorous but still a real compromise.
Another acquaintance, a Korean woman married to a Dutch man, told me how her husband didn’t like storing kimchi in the same fridge as cheese because he said “the cheese absorbs the smell.” They ended up buying a second fridge just for kimchi. She laughed as she told the story, but it was the kind of laughter that sits on top of something heavier.
And that’s the thing about smell: what feels “too much” in one place is treasured in another. And every culture has its own bold, beautiful scents to prove it.
Every culture has its bold-smelling treasures. Each one tells a story of adaptation, scarcity, and heritage. Survival turned into flavor, discomfort turned into pride:
Yes, the discomfort is real. But so is the meaning. Smelly foods are often foods of necessity. They are born of preservation, shaped by climate and scarcity. Over time, they become foods of celebration, identity, and memory.
To judge them by smell alone is to miss the story. To honor someone’s food is to honor their past, their palate, their people. Respect isn’t about liking everything. It’s about being willing to stand near someone else’s memory — even if it stinks.
I think back to the night market in Taipei. The steam rising, the din of voices, the bravery it took to try something that repelled me. My husband’s quiet gesture stayed with me: a small act of openness that felt, somehow, like love.
In the end, it wasn’t the taste that stayed with me. It was the moment, the willingness to try, to listen, to stand in someone else’s story, even when it smelled strange. Looking back, it wasn’t really the stinky tofu I remember most, but the quiet love tucked into that act of openness.
So maybe the lesson is this: keep your nose open, and embrace the unfamiliar. Because sometimes what stinks at first becomes the story you carry with you.
