Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I think I always pronounced it toe-foo, but after studying Chinese in college it definitely cemented my emphasis on the first syllable.

I don't even know how to say a word with more than one syllable without emphasizing one of them. Unless I use my robot voice.

Ok after saying it so many times that I've lost the word's meaning, it's Toe-foo... Only slight emphasis on toe

I say it both ways, but I think I say it toFU more often. I never really thought much about it.

I put a very slight emphasis on the first syllable.



Technically, that's correct. In Japanese, there's a double length vowel on the first syllable. Tōfu. That recording is much slower than common speech, though, in order to emphasize that. In everyday speech it wouldn't be quite so obvious.

It's actually a Chinese word. Dòufu, with a drop tone on the first syllable. It's spelled the same in Japanese and Chinese (豆腐). The Japanese pronunciation is simply fitting the Chinese pronunciation into the Japanese sound system.

I pronounce it "FUCKLUMPS."

I get kicked out of Whole Foods a lot.

You ask where they keep their extra-firm fucklumps ONE TIME...

I say TO-fu. The only person who I've ever heard pronounce it "to-FU" is my dad, and I always comment on how weird it is when he says it. Not that I'm a brat or anything.

To-FU makes it sound like a martial art that has to be done barefoot.

It seems like when meatheads are trying to make it sound gross they always say "To-FU."

An ex boyfriend's dad asked me once if I liked to eat that "foo-foo". I just told him no because I had not yet acquired a taste for it.

I usually just say TO-fu. A lot of the time when people say to-FU (to me), they are saying it to rib me in some way, or to pretend like it's something weirder than it is.

But then again, there was the one time they took me to a secret room out back and showed me. That was an interesting afternoon, and next evening, and couple of days the next week, but then they stopped letting me in and I had to go back to fruitlessly asking around.

One day I will find another. One day.

This thread has confused me. I don't THINK I emphasise either syllable, but I'm not sure I know anything anymore.....

My boyfriend's mum pronounces it like toff-ew, which is a bit odd but, if she's gone to the trouble to present me with toff-ew, then who am I to correct her?

When I say it in a Swedish sentence, I pronounce it to-FU, but when I read it in English it sounds like TOE-fu in my head.

Yeah, this...I had to even look up the episode because I was having a hard time imagining some other way of pronouncing it. And I still am.

It's true! Fact: a good percentage of those people also say vaygun and tempeeh and satan. I like meat so I refuse to speak properly. Take that, vegans!

I . . . put equal emphasis on each syllable?

tempeeh! hahaha

This and neither sounds has more emphasis than the other.


Hahaha

toad food

this thread made me happy today, when i was feeling blue. i do not say toe FOO. (except maybe occasionally when trying to be funny with a friend).

1. also i laughed out loud <hard> when i read solipsistnation's pronunciation!
2. i had the same feeling as isachandra mentioned - i think the dude on "america's test kitchen" said it that way once when he was denouncing it.
3. thanks for pointing out toFULish, i had never thought of that! i always thought of it as a portmanteau (also a good new word i just learned here!) between Tofu and Delish, as in delicious!

TTYL

So how do you pronounce tempeh? Is the tempeeh pronunciation with a dragged out eeeh part?

Personally, it does not bother me how people pronounce certain words. My mother probably does not hear the word vegan spoken out loud very much, and if she says vaygun with her Italian/Dutch accent, but also respects my food choices whenever I am over there, is the pronounciation really such a big deal?

Bean curd.

to-FU.