In search of traditional Japanese tofu

I have been teaching Japanese cooking for more than 10 years and am amused and bemused by people’s reaction to some of the more unusual Japanese foods. Yet it is an innocuous ingredient – tofu – that triggers the widest spectrum of reactions, ranging from alpha male fears of emasculation to beams of approval from bean-lovers.

A simple food made of coagulated soya milk that comes from cooked and crushed soya beans, tofu deserves a more balanced press. The ancient capital of Kyoto is where the finest tofu is said to originate, and so I travelled there to find out more about a food that is as much a part of the Japanese diet as cheese is in the west.

Tofu is low in both fat and calories, making it a healthy alternative to meat. It is sometimes known as “meat of the field” for its excellent nutritional value and it is packed with high quality soya protein with well-balanced amino acids (making it easily digestible), linoleic acid (which helps to metabolise cholesterols) and vitamins B1 and E.

The basic tofu-making method has hardly changed over the centuries, and simple neighbourhood tofu shops are a traditional Japanese sight. In recent years, however, increasing numbers of Japanese buy factory-produced tofu from supermarkets and it has become much harder to find shops that still use the traditional equipment and, more importantly, Japanese ingredients. But at Iriyama Tofu, near the Old Imperial Palace in central Kyoto, those who get up very early can see two large vats of Hokkaido-grown soya beans simmering over wood-burning clay stoves. The family has been making tofu for the neighbourhood in much the same way at the same site since the first half of the 19th century.

While he packs tofu, Takashi Iriyama, a 10th generation tofu-maker, explains how vital it is to safeguard the family tradition of using well-water pumped from directly beneath, sticking to non-genetically modified Japanese soya beans, using nigari (sea brine) as a coagulant for its subtle sweetness, even though it can be unpredictable (especially during hot weather).

“The clay stoves cook the beans more gently,” says Iriyama’s silver-haired mother, squatting on a stool on the wet stone floor next to her son as she weighs batches of okara (tofu lees, or the soya bean bran that is filtered out of the soya milk during the tofu-making process).

She says how important it is for the shop to continue street vending in the neighbourhood. Like a milk round, it is almost a community service. Iriyama still pulls an old black two-wheeled cart around, just as his father and his grandfather did, bringing fresh tofu to the young and old who might otherwise find it difficult to go shopping.

No one knows exactly when this soya bean food first came to Japan, and although the word “tofu” first appeared in a Japanese document in 1182, it probably existed some time before then. Between the eighth and the end of the ninth century, Japan sent a series of missions to China to learn from China’s rich religious and cultural advances and it is almost certain that the tofu-making technique was introduced by visiting Chinese priests or returning Japanese Buddhist monks.

Tofu was eaten as a poor man’s food in China centuries before it came to Japan, but it was the ruling upper class and the Buddhist priests who were the first Japanese to eat tofu. Tofu remained within palaces and temples, adding a vital source of protein to the vegetarian Buddhist diets of aristocrats and monks. The arrival of strict Zen sects in the late 12th century and the subsequent spread of Shojin Ryori (Buddhist vegetarian cooking) made tofu more available to the general public. To promote their religion many Zen temples, especially in Kyoto and Kamakura, opened Shojin Ryori restaurants in and around the temple compounds.

By the end of the 14th century, most Japanese were Buddhists and refrained from eating meat. It was during this time that the Japanese created several new varieties of tofu that did not exist in China. Those new varieties include koya-dofu (dried-frozen tofu), hiryozu or ganmodoki as it is sometimes called (deep-fried tofu dumplings), abura-age (deep-fried tofu pouches), yaki-dofu (grilled tofu) and kinukoshi-dofu (soft silken tofu).

It is still possible to eat tofu in long-established restaurants in Kyoto. One of the best-known is Okutan, which opened in 1675 as a teahouse on the spacious grounds of Nanzenji temple in Kyoto.

Much of Japanese cuisine as we understand it today was formed during the Edo period (1603-1868), when Japan was closed to the rest of the world. A 17th-century Chinese Zen monk, Ingen Ryuki, composed a clever short proverb in praise of Japanese tofu, which is still used today. It describes both the character of Japanese tofu and that of a good person: mame de shikaku de yawaraka de. Each line has a double meaning, allowing the poem to be read either as “made of soya beans”, or “being diligent”, “square, cleanly cut”, or “being upright and earnest”, and “soft”, or “being gentle and kind-hearted” – admirable qualities in bean curds and human beings.

Kimiko Barber’s most recent book is ‘The Chopsticks Diet’