Artisan Tofu

July 2010
I’m going to reveal to you a deep, dark secret: I’m an Asian-American food writer, and I’ve never liked tofu. It’s true. The all-important protein, which sustained ancient Asian civilizations for centuries, quite frankly, bores me to tears. Tofu served in saucy, stir-fried dishes? Ho hum. Deep-fried tofu? Eh. Raw tofu? Yeah, right. Then, I visited San Jose Tofu Company, a nondescript shop in Northern California hand-making its own tofu—and I had an epicurean epiphany.

You know, that moment when you bite into an unfamiliar food, and the nerve connections between your mouth and brain electrify, causing you to yelp, “Oh my god, this is so good!” It’s that a-ha moment when you know you’ve been wrong about something, and now you’re forever a slave to it—willing to climb mountains, endure extreme temperatures, and maybe even commit a petty crime, for just one more taste.

So, I’m in line at a hole-in-the-wall in San Jose’s Japantown, and the only thing dividing me from the barely-there kitchen (probably just large enough to park an SUV) is a narrow counter. Staring at the two metal vats and wooden crates stacked behind Chester Nozaki, the owner, I’m thinking, “I drove an hour and a half through pounding rain for this?” Disappointment must have been written all over my face, as an older Japanese woman standing next to me says, “Don’t worry. This tofu is so delicious.” She goes on to swoon over the soymilk, testifying that it gives her an inexplicable energy boost and that it had replaced her morning coffee. “Whatever, lady,” I think to myself. Then a girl no older than 17 years trots in sporting flip flops and her own plastic container, which Chester fills with shiny, wet tofu. “Hey, how do you eat that?” I ask her, wondering what a teenager would be doing with fresh tofu. “I eat it raw sprinkled with shoyu and bonito flakes. It’s so yummy! You have to taste it.” A middle-age Asian dude standing next to me agrees. “It’s the best tofu around,” he claims. “My father used to buy it from this place since I was a kid, and I’m still coming here to get my fix.” “Alright,” I resigned, throwing down six dollars and fifty cents. “Give me two blocks of tofu and two quarts of soy milk.” Chester slid two feet to the commercial metal sink, scooped the fragile white lumps into a plastic bag, and I walked out of there looking like I just won a goldfish at a carnival.

I took a quick swig of the soymilk. “Whoa,” I thought. “It’s still freaking warm.” The steaming, clean-tasting liquid instantly sated me for the moment, but buttered up my expectations for the big prize later. Why wait to taste at home? To be honest, I test in privacy in case the need to gag or spit things out arises. An hour and a half later in my kitchen, the heavy block jiggled nervously as I placed it on a plate. Before my brain could send “no!” signals to my hands, I stabbed a fork into the blob and stuck a piece in my mouth. Processing, processing, hmmm, huh, okay.

Oh. My. God. This. Is. So. Good.

My taste buds were stunned. This was like no other tofu I’ve ever had: silky, mild, slightly nutty, and unbelievably fresh. I simply couldn’t believe it. Instead of having the chalky texture of packaged tofu, or the leathery blocks sitting in a water barrel, this one reminded me of fine goat cheese, smooth and creamy. No weird bean aftertaste, just pure gossamer perfection. Coincidentally, my one-year-old daughter dislikes tofu as well. I’ve tried to feed her various packaged tofu because apparently, it’s a great source of protein for tikes. Curious to see her reaction, I placed a few tiny cubes on her high chair tray, and after poking it around, she sticks it in her mouth. Chew, chew, down the hatch! It may not be scientific, but it’s definitely evidence that tofu differ in taste and texture. Those first blocks my baby and I devoured raw (raw!) with soy sauce and a few drops of sesame and chili oil over the next two days straight. If heaven’s serving fresh bean curd, then I’m born again.

Tofu’s Long Road
Fresh tofu was a revelation for me. But, tofu itself is really, really old. The soy curd was being made by China’s Han Dynasty 206 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. Think about that for a moment. According to legend, a Chinese chef accidentally threw calcium sulfate (called nigari in Japanese), a natural derivative of sea salt, in attempts to flavor pureed soybean. It curdled up, much like how milk does when rennin is added to make cheese, and voila! Tofu was discovered. The Chinese soy trend began with family businesses providing tofu and soymilk in their respective neighborhoods. Its popularity spread via visiting Japanese priests, who took tofu recipes back home to their island nation. In the late 19th century, the great influx of Chinese immigrants brought the tofu-making tradition to Northern California, where soybean processing factories were built—Wo Sing & Co. being the first in 1878—to feed an increasing demand. San Francisco’s Quong Hop & Co. was founded in 1896, and is the oldest existing tofu maker in America today. In 1958, packaged tofu hit U.S. supermarket shelves.

So, how do these little round soybeans end up a wobbly, white block? Amazingly, nearly the same way it did 2000 years ago. Dried soybeans are soaked overnight and then ground. This extracts liquid, a.k.a. “soymilk.” The byproduct, okara, gets sold or given away to tofu customers; Koreans call it beegee and use the coarse white flakes in a hearty kimchee stew. Then, the milk is heated and a coagulant (the calcium sulfate) is then added. The resulting curds are broken up and packed in wooden boxes stretched with porous cloths. Large weights (and I’m talking so insanely heavy that I couldn’t move a box even one inch) are placed on top to drain the excess water. Finally, the blocks are cut into cubes and stored in cool water. That’s it, sort of.

“Tofu is 98% science, but the 2% that’s art is more nuanced,” explains Minh Tsai, founder and owner of Hodo Soy in Oakland, California. “What’s the right temperature of the milk to make silken tofu? What will make the liquid coagulate exactly how you want it turn out, with the perfect texture and flavor?” This 2% coagulation factor is what sets incredible tofu apart from the mediocre. “All commercially-made silken tofu is coagulated with glucono delta-lactone (GDL). It’s a synthetic coagulant that works 10 times faster, which also makes it harder to control,” Minh explains. “It’s not good or bad. It’s just not a natural coagulant.” Also, soy proteins don’t last very long, which means tofu has a short shelf life, which I discovered the hard way (while testing tofu for this story I, um, forgot to check the expiration dates and had to throw out two blocks of tofu). San Jose Tofu Co.’s hand-made tofu must be eaten within a few days. Hodo Soy’s tofu, which uses partly mechanized production, lasts one week. Packaged tofu uses a thinner, more diluted soymilk (hence, less protein) and can go for a month or longer. Of course, what you gain in shelf life, you lose in flavor and texture. That’s the tradeoff.

Conversely, with the exception of South Korea-based Pulmuone (the mother of all tofu companies), soy products in Asia are still made the old-fashioned way: by small, family-owned businesses. Minh remembers how handmade tofu was just part of everyday life in Vietnam. He recalls bustling breakfast stalls lining the streets, selling sticky rice, tofu, and sweet soymilk. “My grandfather and I would go for a stroll every morning and bring breakfast back for the family,” he says. “It was our daily routine.” Minh distinctly remembers one family who made all their tofu in their home, including laboriously grinding the soybeans by hand. “I remember that burnt smell of the soymilk as they stirred it over a burning stove. Then they would pour it through a cloth, add sugar to the sieved liquid, and sell the soymilk steaming fresh. The tofu wouldn’t be ready until the afternoon, after the milk had been curdled and the curds pressed between wooden slats.” After searching in the States for 20 years, Minh still couldn’t find a good tofu. “I wanted it like the way I remembered,” he says. “The smell of fresh soy is a fantastic aroma. It was such a good memory.”

Minh decided he would make his own tofu, and opened Hodo Soy in 2004. Different from the typical mom-and-pop tofu-maker, Minh’s company sources organic and non-GMO soybeans and utilizes shiny, new machines. “But we still maintain the old world processes. We just make it cleaner,” he claims, referring to the sometimes-questionable sanitation of hand-made (read: hand-touched) tofu. “Sometimes I think we’re really unique because we’ve attempted to sanitize the production process,” he thinks aloud. “At other times, I think we’re not all that different from the old world at all. We’ve just mechanized the measuring, scooping, grinding, and handling of the beans. Other than that, our tofu is still made the exact same way as it has always been made.” Like most local tofu shops, Minh keeps his product local –refusing to sell beyond the Bay Area--because he doesn’t want to change his tofu to make it en masse or to last longer on the shelves. “I’ll sell to wider areas if we expand and set up production in those places,” he explains. “That way, the tofu is still the same fresh, locally-made product I make in Oakland. I won’t skimp on quality.”

Same issue with San Jose Tofu Co., which has been open since World War II. Chester’s grandfather started the tiny shop in 1946, then his father began working there at age 17, and finally Chester took the business over when he turned 25. “My brother and I grew up at the store,” he says. “Our father would get up at the crack of dawn to make tofu by hand, then we’d deliver it to customers in a little red wagon.” In late 1970’s, they sold wholesale to a company who shipped it out to Boston, but couldn’t meet up with the demand. Instead of altering the integrity of their tofu, they decided to only sell locally. “We didn’t want to package it or add any preservatives,” Chester explains. “We would have had to change the quality of the tofu in order to make it last longer, and we didn’t want to do that.”

The Future of Tofu
Today, most of us Americans only know the packaged stuff. It’s supposedly very good for us, so we mold it into different shapes and squish it into our diet—floating in stews, frying it up in the pan or deep fryer, even stuffed into sausage casings to replicate hot dogs (love those vegan barbeques). Everyone wants to love tofu, but nobody puts it on the list of “What I’d Want to Eat if it was My Last Day on Earth.” Sure, tofu made and consumed the same day would be heavenly, but is there also a practical place for the commercial variety in the U.S.? “I think it’s great because people still don’t know what to do with tofu,” says Minh. “The tofu industry is not dissimilar to the latest artisan rage over chocolate, olive oil, and bread. There’s room for both the big guys, who get the product and information out to a lot of people, and the little guys, who encourage the big guys to make better product.” The proof is in the customers. Chester says that, over the years, his customer base has diversified to more Asians, Hispanics, African-Americans, and even Europeans from around the Bay Area. “I have no idea how they are preparing it,” he admits, “but I just know they are buying a lot of it.”

A Dying Art
Next time you take a bite of handmade bean curd, think about this: Chester and his wife, Amy, run their operation 20 hours a day, almost every single day, beginning at 1 a.m. The only machine they use is a bean grinder, and one batch of tofu takes an hour from start to finish. However, they continuously make multiple batches throughout the day so that the block you are walking out with is only minutes old. “In the beginning, I loved the heavy labor involved,” Chester recalls. “Lifting 120-pound batches of tofu, setting soybean paste into a steaming-hot tank of water without letting it splash.” It’s intense. That’s why you have to get there in the morning; there’s only so much Chester and his wife can make, and it’s first come, first serve. “We just use our intuition on how much we need for the day,” Chester admits. “It’s the wrong way to do business, but that’s how my grandfather did it.” They sell out every day, but not because they are pumping out a lot of tofu, but because they make less. “I’d rather sell out than have leftovers and waste it,” he rationalizes.

Okay, so making tofu is hard, not lucrative, and dangerous. Like any passionate artisan, however, he’s proud of what he makes and it has driven him his entire life. “But we’re getting old now and it’s taking a physical toll on us,” he says with some sadness. “Hopefully someone in the family will approach us about taking it over.” Meanwhile, his customers keep coming each day—not knowing if it will be the store’s last—just to get one more taste of a glorious, ancient art form.

Written by: Susan Kim
Susan has written on food, travel, home design, and the environment for numerous publications, including the New York Times, TIME, Sunset Magazine, and Coastal Living.