Tofu and Netanyahu

I have some weird connections between food and personalities / events. Documenting one of them

Every time I cook tofu, I think of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If you think this is unusual, read on!

Basically it has to do with this movie called Raid on Entebbe (1976). I mean - I saw it on my tape on my VCP sometime in the early 90s, but it turns out it was a “made for TV movie” (sort of prototype of “Netflix original production”?).

It is a fictionalisation of the real life hijacking of AF139 between Paris and Tel Aviv by Palestinian terrorists, who took the plane to Entebbe airport in Uganda (then under Idi Amin). Israeli commandos stormed the plane, rescuing most hostages.

Now, it’s been at least 30 years since I watched this movie, but there are parts of it that I still remember vividly. In the fictionalised version in the movie, most of the hostages are rescued alive. While there are several casualties among the Ugandan military and Palestinian terrorists, the Israeli commandos only lose one guy - Yonatan Netanyahu, brother of current PM Benjamin.

So what is the connection with Tofu? It’s the way I cut the packet.

As I told you, there are few things I remember from the movie, but a few scenes that I remember very vividly. Like the scene where Yonatan Netanyahu gets shot in the back.

He is immediately taken to what can best be described as a “field hospital”. What I remember is the way the doctors open his shirt to try and extract the bullet - they make him lie down face down and cut his shirt in a straight line in the middle of his back, down from the collar. All I remember is he still dies.

Anyway, the thing with Tofu is that with about 15 grams of protein for every 100 grams of Tofu, I need a full 200g packet for a single meal (I cut it into small cubes, first soak it in boiling water, then coat it with oil and salt and pepper, then air fry it for 10 minutes, and then finish it off in a stir fry). Which means that I can open the packet in a way that I don’t need to preserve it (this is unlike Paneer, of which I only eat half a packet at a time, and so I need to make sure I open in a way that I can preserve).

Also, the tofu packet has some water which I need to throw in the sink. And so over a period of time, I’ve figure that the best way to cut open a tofu packet is by cutting off one end, and then cutting the top of the packet right down the middle - just like the Israelis cut open Yoni Netanyahu’s shirt in the movie.

And so my chain of thought (a much abused phrase nowadays) goes like this - as I’m cutting open the packet of tofu, I remember Raid on Entebbe, and the scene where Yoni Netanyahu’s shirt is being cut. Then I remember that he was the brother of current PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

It is important that I’m documenting this, since I have many other such random food-personality/event connections where I only remember the connections, but not not why I came up with them.

When I’m flipping an omelette, there is one relative I think of. When I’m pouring dosa, I’m reminded of one friend’s wedding (that marriage didn’t last, but that has nothing to do with my dosas). And I have no clue why I think of those things while making them!

In any case, I had tofu for lunch yesterday, and Netanyahu is in the news nowadays, so this is a good time to blog this!

PS: I was possibly troublesome as a kid. I remember this one game I would play with my grandfather as he fed me lunch. He would feed me one spoon and tell me some celebrity’s name. If that person was alive, I would cycle into my grandmother’s bedroom, around it and back. If that person was dead, I would just cycle round the drawing room.

This is how I got to know a lot of Indian politicians, and whether they were dead or alive (this was sometime between 1987 and 89).

Maybe that’s how I started making random connections between food items and people!