Tucker Shaw - The I Hate Tofu Cookbook

CONTENTS

I feel your horror. I used to hate tofu just as much as you do. More, maybe.

And its hard to argue with tofu hatred, at least at first glance. There are few foods that turn people off as much as tofu, and not even just for the most obvious reasons: that its an ugly shade of dirty eggshell; that it has a skeevy, spongy texture; and that it doesnt actually even look anything like food.

No, the real reason most people get turned off by tofu isnt because its gross. Its because it seems SO BORING. But if tofu is considered boring rather than hateful, that represents progress. (That is, if you consider wider acceptance of tofu progress, which is, I admit, a leap for tofu haters.)

See, when tofu was introduced to the United States in the middle of the last century, it was generally in gloppy, goopy, slimy, rubbery, tasteless dishes that tried desperately and unsuccessfully to stand in for proper things like meat. It was poorly treated by misguided, protein-starved people who probably didnt like food that much in the first place and therefore didnt care whether the final product tasted good or not. *

* This, of course, is a vast overstatement, but its convenient
for the purposes of this portion of the book so just go with it, if you will.

Flavor, schmavor

Heres where I blow your mind: The best thing tofu has to offer, and the thing that sets it apart from all other foods (well, most other foods), is its insistent boringness. This is a good thing.

Stay with me.

See, tofu really is tasteless. (Actually, its more like flavorless, because tasteless means something else.) Good tofu tastes like... nothing, really. Nothing at all. But that lack of flavor, as it turns out, is tofus greatest asset.

To use an analogy that I have a feeling youll warm to: Tofus flavorlessness is a lot like vodkas flavorlessness. You can do anything to it, add just about any flavoring or ingredient you likesweet, salty, bitter, savory, sour, you name itand it will support that flavor like a champ. Vodka, er, I mean tofu (sorry, distracted) will stay in the background, providing a solid base of protein for whatever else you feel like adding to it.

So whats the point of tofu, then, if it doesnt taste like anything? The point of tofu is that its a clean, healthful, powerful, plant-based protein that provides all kinds of for more on that front.)

No whammies

Heres something important to understand: This is not a vegetarian or vegan-focused cookbook. Its not a nondairy cookbook. Youll find milk, honey, cheese, mayo, and more nonvegan stuff like that in here. Maybe even the occasional crumble of bacon. But wherever I can, Ill point out possible substitutions if you want to eat vegan, and, besides, if youre a committed vegan, you probably have a bunch of workarounds already. But the point of this book isnt to avoid meat, its just to add another option into your repertoirea high-protein, low-fat, low-carb, low-cholesterol, gluten-free, calcium-rich, inexpensive, readily available option that also happens to be really easy to work with.

Im not going to hit you with any wildly unusual ingredients. No agar-agar or hemp seeds or virgin coconut oil from the southern-facing slopes of Mount Matavanu here. Not that theres anything wrong with those things. They have their merits, but many of them are hard to find and not so cheap. Besides, since Im an omnivore, Im just as happy to use butter or chocolate.

Im not trying to fool anyone into eating tofu. I hate recipes that try to fake people out. Im not going to call it chicken if it isnt or a milkshake if it isnt. Although, if its easier to explain what a particular dish is sort of like, I might do that. Like the Tofu Salad recipe on )theres no other word for cheesecake.

In short, I dont think tofu should really be considered a substitute for meat or anything else. Tofu should stand alone as a legitimate food thats easy to cook with and, once you get the swing of it and get away from the goop and glop, ridiculously easy to like. You just have to give it a chance.

Someone with experience in PR made a decision early on to go ahead and introduce tofu to the American market as tofu rather than what it really is: soybean curd. Not much of a ring to it, you know? Get your gourmet soybean curd here! Just cant really see that flying off the shelves.

So, marketers used a shorter version of the Japanese name (tou fu) which, at the time, had the benefit of not meaning much to most American supermarket goers. It was a clean slate. But mystery breeds distrust and people were slow to warm up to tofu because they just didnt know what it was or what to do with it. A plain, pale block of spongy white stuff stored in water? Suspicious at best.

But tofu isnt any weirder than, say, yogurt or cheese, really. It doesnt exactly grow on trees, but it doesnt fall all that far from the soybean plant.

How they make it

First, dried soybeans are soaked in water and processed into a paste. That paste is mixed with water into a slurry and cooked (often under pressure), then strained to remove the solids (which often go to the pig trough; hogs love the stuff). The remaining liquid is coagulated by mixing it with a coagulant like calcium sulfate or magnesium chloride (extracted from briny water like the Great Salt Lake in the same way we get sea salt from the ocean). This turns the soybean liquid back into a semisolid, kind of like cottage cheese (curds and whey, if you will).

Then, depending on what the final product is supposed to look and feel like (silken, firm, or extra-firm are the three basic types), the tofu is drained and pressed in a wooden (often bamboo) or metal pressing contraption. They put the screws on it, so to speak, to compress it and help it expel water. Its then pasteurized at 180F (82C) to make it a bit safer and more shelf-stable (much like milk), and, bingo, tofu ready for sale.

See? No weirder than yogurt, which was invented when Mongols stored milk in a sheeps stomach, tied it to a horse, and while galloping across the steppe, jostled and jiggled it around with a bunch of bacteria for long enough to ferment into something that keeps Jamie Lee Curtis regular. *

People have been making tofu for, like, thousands of years. No kidding: Theres evidence that folks were eating it in China during the Han Dynasty in the second century B.C.E. So get on the bus already.

* Just saying.

Buying tofu

Choose a style of tofu based on what youre going to use it for. There are three basic types, though youre likely to find even more variations depending on where you shop. Most tofu comes prepackaged in little square tubs containing about 14 ounces of tofu (sometimes 16 ounces). Not all grocery stores are consistent about where they keep it, but the produce area is the first place I always look, and its there probably 60 percent of the time. Occasionally youll find tofu near the cheese or dairy. So, good luck.