Karen Leibowitz/The Bay Citizen

Outside Eiji restaurant in the Castro

If the new year has inspired you to take stock of your life, consider the legend of Liu An, the ancient Chinese prince who is sometimes credited with inventing tofu in 164 B.C. According to the story, after Liu An first ate tofu, he miraculously grew younger, sprouted wings, and soared up to heaven to join the immortals.

And isn’t that what we all want – especially after a month of holiday bingeing?

In fact, no one knows the exact history of tofu, but most food historians agree that it originated in China about two thousand years ago and spread across Asia in tandem with Buddhism, which encourages a vegetarian diet. Similarly, when Zen Buddhism became trendy in the Bay Area in the 1960s, tofu came along for the ride.

Over the last fifty years, tofu has gained access to American supermarkets and salad bars, but it rarely gets the respect it deserves. Now, however, a few local tofu-lovers are trying to change that.

Outside Eiji, a small Japanese restaurant in the Castro, a huge flag reading “TOFU” proclaims that here, at least, bean curd is not merely a supporting player, but a star in its own right. Hidemi Onoda, co-owner of Eiji, explained that the main ingredient in all tofu is soymilk, which she and her husband make in-house from organic soybeans.

“It’s a lot of work,” she said, “so we only use it for tofu.”

Karen Leibowitz/The Bay Citizen

Ankake tofu (foreground) and cold tofu (background) at Eiji

To make oboro tofu, which is prepared to order, Onoda heats soymilk in a ceramic pot over a small burner on the counter, then adds nigari, which is a traditional Japanese coagulant derived from seawater, and lets the pot sit, covered, for a few minutes.

The light, fluffy tofu that emerges can be eaten with a variety of condiments, but it also serves as the basis for the two other styles of tofu available at Eiji: it is chilled and served with bonito and scallion or gets steamed and served with a soy-dashi sauce, becoming ankake tofu.

The secret to fantastic tofu? According to Onoda and Minh Tsai, founder of Hodo Soy in Oakland, the key is high-quality soymilk – or as Tsai likes to call it, “bean juice.” Thicker soymilk contains more soy protein and more soy fats, which translates into a beanier-flavored tofu.

When he started Hodo Soy in 2004, Tsai saw an opportunity for an artisanal tofu maker to compete with large-scale commercial operations by making tofu from better soymilk.

“What people don’t realize is that the price of tofu has really not increased in 25 years. You can still get a pound of tofu for a dollar, but the quality has deteriorated. It’s the same thing with meat—it may be cheap, but people are starting to realize that it’s worth paying more,” he said.

To make its soymilk thick enough, Hodo Soy measures its organic soymilk with a refractometer to ensure a concentration of 10 brix, which is standard in Asia. (Most American commercial tofu makers start with soymilk of only 6 to 7 brix.) Overall, Tsai is aiming for a tofu that reminds him of what he used to eat in Vietnam.

Karen Leibowitz/The Bay Citizen

Soybeans are first ingredient at Wo Chong

Hodo Soy may be the hippest player in the Bay Area tofu scene, but Wo Chong is the oldest. The Louie family has been in the tofu business since 1935, though it grew out of a grocery store started in Chinatown in 1906. The family moved tofu production to SOMA in the 1970s, where it continues today.

Ted Louie, great-grandson of the first Louie in San Francisco, said that Wo Chong now produces around ten thousand cubes of tofu per day, and the process requires eighty thousand gallons of water. Recently, Wo Chong installed a water reclamation system which is filtering water non-stop, and has cut their water bill in half. “Whatever goes out is cleaner than the city water,” Ted Louie said proudly.

Wo Chong is working on introducing new products, like organic tofu and specialty marinades, but the majority of its business is plain firm tofu. According to Louie, “the firm and the extra firm are flying out the door,” headed toward commissaries at high-tech companies and university cafeterias around the Bay Area. “It seems like they’re using quite a bit of the firm and extra firm, whereas the Asian restaurants use the soft and silken.”

Taking a long view of tofu in this country, Tsai suggested that “the idea of a firm tofu is a Western invention,” because American cooks viewed tofu as a meat alternative, so they wanted a texture more like meat. “Medium tofu was too soft for the grill,” Tsai said, so Western cookbooks suggested pressing tofu with paper towels, without realizing that pushing out the water makes tofu harder to flavor.

The result was a generation of Americans who considered tofu flavorless, which is a shame, because it doesn’t have to be. “The more people understand the science behind tofu, the more they can use it,” Tsai said.

And maybe someday, we will find the secret formula for tofu that transports us directly to heaven. For now, though, we can enjoy the ethereal sensation of silken tofu.

***Active Ingredient Recipe***

Hodo Soy’s Chocolate Mousse Recipe

Here is a recipe for the chocolate mousse that Hodo Soy used to sell at the Ferry Building. It showcases a novel use for tofu, and it’s really easy! There are more tofu-related recipes available at hodosoy.com.

Ingredients:

1 Hodo silken tofu

16 oz
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1 Tablespoon maple syrup

1/4 tablespoon salt

Directions:

1. Heat all ingredients over double boiler, stirring occasionally, just until the chocolate melts. Be careful not to overcook.

2. Pour into a large bowl. Whip with immersion blender until evenly mixed and completely smooth. Continue stirring along the surface to incorporate air for approximately 10 minutes.

3. Pour into single serving dishes and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving. Garnish with whipped cream or a cookie.