{"id":2596,"date":"2022-10-03T17:25:36","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T08:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/?post_type=blog_en&p=2596"},"modified":"2023-03-24T12:37:32","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T03:37:32","slug":"art-of-tofu","status":"publish","type":"blog_en","link":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/?blog_en=art-of-tofu","title":{"rendered":"Art of Tofu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rosanjin Kitaoji, a master of gourmet food, asks in his Tales of Delicious Tofu<\/em><\/span>, \u201cWhere can I find delicious tofu? Because of the abundance of good water, good tofu can be produced only in places famous for their water quality.\u201d However, as Hiroshi Fukuda, who conducted a survey of the culinary culture of tofu throughout Asia, wrote in his book, \u201cIn Japan, there\u2019s a tendency to look only for clean water and to be satisfied with the tofu as long as it\u2019s eaten raw.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As someone with a passion for delicious food, I went to Kyoto and tried tofu.<\/p>\n

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Certainly, the tofu I bought at a famous tofu shop in Kyoto was by far the most delicious I\u2019ve ever tasted, even though I had great difficulty opening the tight-fitting package when I tried to eat the tofu in my hotel room!<\/p>\n

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Because of its simplicity, tofu can be eaten with soy sauce. Even so, because there are various kinds of tofu and soy sauce, many amazing variations are possible\u2014just like the music of Bach. By the way, at Nishiki Market in Kyoto, special soy sauces for cold and boiled tofu are sold. (In contrast, it seems that in China, raw tofu should be eaten with salt rather than soy sauce.)<\/p>\n

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Regarding the origin of tofu, it\u2019s now believed to have been invented in China in the ninth or tenth century. The most famous reference to tofu in Japan appears in the twelfth century, when the Chinese characters \u201c\u5510\u7b26\u201d were written in an offering book at Kasuga Taisha shrine in Nara. I came across Kasuga Taisha when researching karinto<\/em><\/span>,<\/em><\/span> and I\u2019m really curious to know if it\u2019s a shrine with many stories about food; however, I digress.<\/p>\n

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Although it\u2019s uncertain, there being various theories about it, the person said to have invented tofu in China is Liu An, the grandson of Liu Bang, who was King of Huainan. This theory has become prevalent because in Honzo Koumoku<\/em><\/span>,<\/em> which was compiled in the tenth century by Li Shizhen, it\u2019s stated that \u201cthe law of tofu began with Liu An, the King of Huainan in the Han Dynasty.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tofu is very easy to make.<\/p>\n

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First soybeans are soaked in water and mashed in a process called namago.<\/em><\/span> The mash is then boiled and separated into soy milk and bean curd. Finally the soy milk is boiled and bittern is added to it while it cools and hardens. The bittern has the effect of coagulating tofu proteins, but gypsum and vinegar can also be used, although the taste will be different. Shimadofu,<\/em><\/span> which is a kind of tofu made in Okinawa, sometimes uses seawater as a coagulant.<\/p>\n

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In the process, yuba<\/em><\/span> appears on the surface when the soy milk is boiled. Tofu is made by hardening the protein in soybeans with a coagulant, but yuba<\/em><\/span> is made by hardening the protein by heat.<\/p>\n

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After making tofu, okara is left over. And since, in<\/p>\n

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researching this article, I intended to eat okara, I bought some<\/p>\n

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Natural Dashi Gomoku Unohana<\/em><\/span> (medium size), sold at a local supermarket for 198 yen, and tried it.<\/p>\n

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Eating it for the first time in decades brought back the feelings I used to have when eating it. I wonder if those feelings will remain.<\/p>\n

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On the other hand, I noticed some new aspects that I didn\u2019t remember from the past, such as an unexpected bitterness.<\/p>\n

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There are several reasons why it\u2019s been so long since I ate this much okara, but the first thing that comes to mind is probably the difficulty of cooking it.<\/p>\n

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Nowadays, if you feel like using it as an ingredient, you\u2019ll find a lot of recipes on the Internet that include okara, However, ordinary people who aren\u2019t interested in superfoods, health foods, or diets probably see okara as the kind of obanzai<\/em><\/span>,<\/em> or side dish, that they eat at their grandparents\u2019 house in the countryside.<\/p>\n

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If you buy ready-made side dishes, you don\u2019t have to worry about these things, although the seasoning may be too strong or too sweet.<\/p>\n

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On the other hand, if you mix and stir-fry okara with dashi, hijiki,<\/em><\/span> and carrots, you can make it to your own taste. But if you ask me, I don\u2019t really want to eat something I have to go to so much trouble cooking. It\u2019s a hassle. To me, that\u2019s the problem with okara.<\/p>\n

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Okara, as its name suggests, is usually considered to be the soybean lees that are left behind after making tofu. In fact, that\u2019s all it really is.<\/p>\n

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Okara doesn\u2019t seem to have many good points, but the nutrients in it are actually almost the same as those in tofu. In addition, dried okara has more dietary fiber than tofu, so it\u2019s actually very nutritious. Even though Mr. O\u2019Kara seems dull, he\u2019s really a good-looking guy with a lot of smarts. When I talked to him, I discovered Mr. O\u2019Kara is a successful lawyer, though I don\u2019t know why he chose that profession.<\/p>\n

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I think I hear you say, \u201cIt\u2019s a bit hard to understand why the soy milk is still rich in nutrients.\u201d But<\/p>\n

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that\u2019s just cognitive bias<\/p>\n

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due to the knowledge that soaking things like tea or katsuobushi,<\/em><\/span> (dried bonito flakes) in hot water usually extracts their nutrients. (Strictly speaking, this is a comparison of the nutritional content of the same weight of tofu and okara.)<\/p>\n

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Okara used to be used as fodder for pigs but became a contemptible thing that was treated as industrial waste. However, it\u2019s now considered a health food, and many recipe books that include it as an ingredient have been published. I tried looking for them at a local library since okara appears to be a very popular diet ingredient along with oatmeal, but all the recipe books had been borrowed.<\/p>\n

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Incidentally, it seems that the reason pigs are fed okara is that it improves the quality of the pork.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve read that a Scotsman once exclaimed, \u201cSo England is made up of horses, and Scotland is made up of people.\u201d In<\/p>\n

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looking into this strange claim, I discovered that the intestines of horses are long and are populated with microorganisms that convert insoluble dietary fiber into energy. Accordingly, horses can digest oatmeal, whereas humans, lacking such long intestines and the microorganisms they contain, cannot. That\u2019s why some people\u2014myself included\u2014don\u2019t like oatmeal. It\u2019s worth noting that,<\/p>\n

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in terms of their intestines, pigs are closer to humans.<\/p>\n

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Talking of pigs, people in Okinawa say that they eat the entire pig except for the squeal, whereas people elsewhere in Japan eat soybeans without leaving anything behind. Also, culturally speaking, eating tofu is widespread throughout Asia and seems to coincide with the eating of glutinous rice.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s just occurred to me that I ate douhua<\/em> in Taiwan a while back, and recently it\u2019s become available in Japan. However, I feel that the taste of the Japanese variety is a bit different from that of the Taiwanese one.<\/p>\n

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To borrow the words of Kitaoji-san, the difference lies in the fact that \u201ctofu is umami!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Since a beautiful happiness fills your mouth the moment you start eating, this delicious impact is easy to understand. And while a dish that directly stimulates the taste buds and never disappoints our dopamine-filled brains is certainly good, I initially feel unsatisfied. But the more I eat, the more I chew,<\/p>\n

experiencing a kind of deliciousness that gradually develops and slowly seeps into one\u2019s mouth and body. When exposed to such a delicacy, it\u2019s easy to end up having eaten it all before you know it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I feel this is certainly what I experienced in Taiwan and Kyoto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2588,"template":"","blog_en":[],"tax_blog_en":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/blog_en\/2596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/blog_en"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog_en"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog_en","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fblog_en&post=2596"},{"taxonomy":"tax_blog_en","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itohtrading.jp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftax_blog_en&post=2596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}