A World of Surprises at Tofu Festival

To the uninitiated, tofu is synonymous with bland. It comes in funny white blocks that float in water. All by itself, it doesn’t taste like much.

But the people attending the Tofu Festival in Little Tokyo this weekend know different. They’ll tell you that with some imagination and expertise--and a lot of spices--tofu is a culinary delight.

“You’ve got to get the spices and the seasoning right,” said Brian Flinn of Concord, one of hundreds of people crowding the booths Saturday. “That’s the difference between bad and good tofu.” Flinn prefers soy sauce and celery salt and other condiments “depending on what kind of mood I’m in.”

More than 20,000 people were expected for the second annual Tofu Festival, which began Saturday and ends today. The event is a fund-raiser for the Little Tokyo Service Center and kicks off the 57th annual Nisei Week Japanese Festival.

Twenty-six restaurants served up a tasty variety of tofu dishes, from the conventional tofu miso soup and tofu curry to the more far-out peanut butter tofu and tofu chocolate mousse.

For tofu lovers, the protein-rich food is synonymous with healthful. It is made from an extract of soybeans and used in salads, soups and other dishes.

“The general consensus is that tofu is a very healthy part of the Japanese diet,” said Bill Watanabe, executive director of the Little Tokyo Service Center. “The more we can substitute red meat and fatty foods, the better it is for you.”

When tofu is the main ingredient, even an ice cream sandwich can seem like health food--at least Hich Endo, 71, who worked a booth selling Tofutti ice cream sandwiches, thinks so.

“It’s a nondairy product,” Endo said. “It should be healthy. I hope. I don’t know, I’m just a volunteer. Try it. You’d be surprised how similar it is to ice cream.” He offered a reporter a chocolate sandwich which did, in fact, taste as rich and sweet as your average ice cream, if not more so.

“Not bad, eh?” Endo said. “I had a vanilla one this morning.”

The presence of such dishes as tofu chocolate mousse surprised even a few veteran tofu lovers, like Mat Uyeno of San Gabriel.

“Believe me, I had no idea that there were that many uses myself,” Uyeno said. “This has been an educational experience. Who would think that desserts are made of tofu?”

Indeed, the buzz of the festival was the tofu cheesecake offered by Ryo Sato, the chef de cuisine and owner of the Chez Sateau restaurant in Arcadia.

People kept coming back for seconds, including Jennifer Loew. “It’s incredible,” she said.

Asked for the recipe, Sato answered, “It’s a secret.” But after a little prodding, he rattled off a list of ingredients: “Cream cheese, sour cream, egg, lemon juice.” That didn’t sound much different from your standard cheesecake. But then Sato added: “It’s half tofu, so it has less calories.”

Japanese Americans made up a majority of the crowd Saturday. Some said tofu was an integral part of their childhood. Don Tahara, of Southern California Cuisine Ltd., a catering company, grew up eating the food.

“It’s served in a lot of dishes, primarily for dinner, in soups,” said Tahara. And it’s a favorite snack too. “It’s good cold. You put a little soy sauce on top and have it with beer.”

Last year, Tahara offered a tofu taco at the festival: tofu seasoned with “fajita spices, cooked on a very hot grill, served with salsa fresca and lettuce.”

This year, Tahara served tofu hamburgers and tofu ravioli.

Nearby, there were tofu cookbooks for sale. A loudspeaker announced a tofu-eating contest. For those who just wanted to eat, there was a lot to choose from:

Tofu Caesar salad, tofu in cioppino (lobster) broth, tofu Greek salad, mabo tofu, tofu coffee dessert, tofu in hot braised sauce. . . .