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White, soft and nutritious tofu is a traditional Japanese food. Made from mashed soy beans, it is a truly multi-purpose food; it can be eaten just as it is, together with savory condiments, as an ingredient in miso soup, or in combination with a wide range of other foods.
Tofu has long been a dietary staple of Japanese cuisine, and has also attracted much attention as a health food in Western countries where meat-based dishes are so common. Today, tofu is eaten around the world, mixed in hamburgers and salads and a wide variety of other dishes as well as desserts, and even used as a base for beverages.
Tofu first appeared in Han China (206 BC–AD 7) and was introduced into Japan prior to the Nara period (710–784) by Japanese emissaries to the Tang court. These emissaries brought the novel food back with them, along with the teachings of Zen Buddhism, which prohibited the eating of meat or fish. Tofu became an important source of protein for the monks and priests in Japan’s Buddhist temples.
Gradually the vegetarian cooking of the Buddhist temples was transmitted to the nobility and samurai, and by the Muromachi period (1392–1573), the typical Zen menu of rice, miso soup, and one or two side dishes had become the standard fare of the common people as well. Tofu, valued for its versatility and high nutrition, came to be widely used in Japanese cooking.
Soy beans soaked in water are mashed into a thick paste called go, which is then steamed and separated into soy milk and pulpy curds called okara. A magnesium chloride compound taken from sea salt, called nigari, is added to the soy milk to coagulate it into the soft mass known as tofu. Soy beans are extremely rich in protein, so much so that they are often referred to as the “meat of the field,” but they are also highly fibrous, making their protein hard to digest. The process of pulverizing the beans, removing the pulp, and coagulating the remaining soy milk to make tofu, is a major innovation that makes it possible to digest and absorb more than 80% of the soy bean’s nutritious content. A single 300g cake of tofu has as much protein as 124g of meat or three and one-half eggs. |
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| Shin Ohishi, under whose critical eye all tofu made and served at Ukai must pass. |
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