After signing up, and telling the festival organizers about tofu misozuke, we were asked if we wanted to make a short presentation as part of the educational program. I jumped at the opportunity to go on and on. Below is most of my presentation on the ancient and mostly unverifiable history of tofu misozuke.

Tofu Misozuke Pre-History

Soybean cultivation and tofu production both originated from China and their invention are traditionally attributed to legendary characters. Emperor Shennong invented agriculture (and medicine) and domesticated soybeans along with all other important crops about 5000 years ago. Tofu was said to have been invented in the 2nd century BC by Prince Liu An, who is also credited with inventing t’ai chi and a tempered 12 tone musical scale, among many other things. He was said to have grown younger and younger as he ate more tofu and eventually sprouted wings, ascended into heaven, and became the patron god of tofu. [Not verifiable.]

Soybeans, tofu, and fermented soybean products probably came to Japan along with Buddhist missionaries in the 6th century. But in Japan there was already something called ‘Jomon miso’ made from salted, fermented grains and/or fish. Jomon refers to the Japanese Neolithic era. So did the Japanese adapt the techniques for making Jomon miso to use soybeans as a new substrate, or did soybean based miso also come from China? There are fermented soybean pastes in Chinese cooking, too, but it never achieved the ubiquity that miso does. And miso, so central to Japanese cuisine, has properties that made tofu misozuke possible, and made it a distinct class of preserved tofu. I’ll get back to that on a future post about the biochemistry behind tofu misozuke.

The oldest surviving mention of tofu in Japanese occurred in the diary of a Buddhist monk in Nara, dated 1183. Nara was the landing spot of Buddhist missionaries all those centuries ago and is still the center of Japanese Buddhism today. The monk’s diary makes for a convenient segue into:

The Genpei War

In 1180, 3 years before the journal entry, many temples, statues, and sacred texts in Nara were burned down by Taira Kiyomori, head of the powerful, dominant Taira or Heike clan, and his troops. For this evil deed, his clan was doomed and Taira Kiyomori himself was to die from a fever so hot that water poured on him burst in to flame. [Not verifiable, but Taira's pursuit by ghosts/descent into madness is well illustrated below.]

Taira no Kiyomori’s Spectral Vision by Utagawa Hiroshige (ca. 1845) – Taira no Kiyomori looks over his garden which is ominously transformed into visions of skulls and skeletons.

Taira Kiyomori died in 1181, the civil war between the Heike Clan and the Minamoto or Genji clan raged on for another 4 years, finally ending in 1185 at the naval battle of Dannoura, in the narrow strip of sea separating the main Japanese island of Honshu and the southwestern island of Kyushu. Heike forces were utterly destroyed, the Imperial family and many Heike warriors committed suicide by jumping into the sea.

The Sea Bed at Daimotsu Bay by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1851) – Under the sea with the ghosts of Heike clan general Taira no Tomomori (jumped into the water with an anchor) and others. Also pictured are the famous Heike crabs bearing the faces and souls of Heike warriors; not to be steamed and eaten.

Ghosts stories, legends and epics inspired by the war, and that last battle in particular became a prominent part of Japanese culture, inspiring artists, musicians, and writers for centuries to come. The Tale of the Heike, for instance, is an epic poem and biwa lute piece that dates back to the 13th century and is part of Japan’s musical canon. I first learned about all this when I was captivated by a vignette from the movie Kwaidan invoking ghosts from the battle Dannoura.

From Kwaidan by Masaki Kobayashi (dir., 1964) – Hoichi, the virtuoso reciter of Tales of the Heike, has to be protected from ghosts who wanted to hear again of their last days.

But survivors of that battle were important too. The remnants of the Heike clans fled into the mountains and backwaters of Kyushu on the other side of the strait and had to adapt to the remote conditions there. They were no longer near Kyoto or Nara, the centers of early tofu productions. In order to make rare goods last longer, the Heike survivors were credited with having invented tofu misozuke.

Not verifiable, of course, but my world is better with that story. Imagine it! The sequel to the epic Tales of the Heike is the invention of tofu misozuke! Elizabeth Andoh (more below) pointed out to us that misozuke is a widely practiced technique and tofu misozuke is not isolated to Kyushu. Nonetheless we see here that the people of Kyushu are especially attached to the dish and proud of its local origins.

Special thanks have to go to the wonderful Elizabeth Andoh. When the opportunity to speak about tofu misozuke came up, I was terrified of spreading misinformation and misrepresenting some parts of the wild, wonderful world of Japanese cuisine. I reached out to Elizabeth and she graciously agreed to spend time answering my questions. Elizabeth Andoh has been teaching Japanese cuisine for more than 4 decades and has written many books along the way. Her last three books – Washoku, on Japanese homecooking; Kansha, on Japanese vegan and vegetarian cuisine; and Kibo, a fundraiser for the tsunami recovery efforts – are accompanied by websites regularly updated with new lessons. Oh, and her Washoku book contained one of the few English recipes for tofu misozuke. With so much on her plate (ahem), we were flabbergasted and touched when she fit us into her busy schedule. She eventually spent over an hour with Oanh and me, bombarding us with so much information that we’re still not done digesting it all. Clearly, any misinformation left on my presentation and on this post was all my own fault. Also, her challenge to our claim of a Kyushu – tofu misozuke connection led to our discovery of the neat little story told above.

We have two tofu misozuke  events coming up:

Saturday Oct. 20th 11am-3pm  : Tofu misozuke tasting at Rainbow Grocery, 1745 Folsom Street (@ 13th Street), San Francisco CA, 94103.

Saturday Oct. 27th 11am-2pm : Tofu misozuke tasting at New Leaf Evergreen, 5667 Silver Creek Valley Rd, San Jose, CA 95138

If you’re curious about tofu misozuke and still haven’t had a taste for yourself, please drop by. We also sample out tofu misozuke most every Sunday at the Palo Alto Farmers’ Market on California Avenue.

Anyway, onto summer…

It started out with a booth and an educational presentation at the 2012 Northern California Soy and Tofu Festival. A lot of people stop by for their first taste of tofu misozuke on a lovely day in Japantown Peace Plaza. There was music and dances and lots of other foods besides. A good time all around. The educational panel was fun as well, a lot of guests have not heard of tofu misozuke and were interested to know more about the history and science of it. I’ll have the presentation up as a blog post soon.

Later that month, we went to the Fancy Food Show in Washington DC. Counting all the floors together, it was something like 9 city blocks’ worth of specialty food from all around the world. Amazing! Below is part of the convention center floor:

Here’s a fun fact: The Rau Om booth in the New Brands on the Shelf Pavillion was mere feet away from where my research poster was when I attended a conference in DC a few years back.

Rau Om’s booth at the Fancy Food Show

• We met journalists and buyers and chefs and food professionals of all sorts. We never knew something like this existed before, and being a part of it was so much fun and so much food! As food lovers too, the Fancy Food Show was one of those peel-the-curtain back moments that reveal all the hard work and infrastructure that go into getting food onto the market shelves and dining table.

Being at the New Brands pavilion was a little bit like being at the kids table. Everyone always tried to sneak away from their booth to see what the established brands are doing. A lot of people curious about what’s new and what’s a good story also stopped by to watch our antics.

We came away from the Fancy Food Show with quite a bit of press. First a number of journalists listed us as part of their highlights of the Fancy Food Show, even their favorite product of the show in some cases:

• Huffington Post – Best Bites of the Fancy Food Show by Katherine Brewer
• DC Vegan – Vegan Foods Delight at the Fancy Food Show by Amber McDonald. Our tofu misozuke made quite an impression, but apparently Amber also remembered Oanh and me for talking up how well our tofu misozuke goes with drinking!
• The Veracious Vegan – Summer Fancy Food Show 2012 by Angela Proudfoot. Angela’s continued to come up with some really decadent way to serve tofu misozuke – like with vegan caviar!
• My Favorite 2012 Fancy Food Bites and Sips - by Nevin Martell
• Chef’s Expression – An Inspired Trip to the Fancy Food Show
• Dish Bliss – The Fancy Food Show

A number of ‘zines also wrote a whole article about us after the show:

• Cool Hunting - Rau Om Miso-cured tofu answers the call of cheese-craving vegans by James Thorne.
• Tasting Table – Miso Happy: Mindbendingly Delicious Tofu by Posie Harwood
• The Kitchn – Beyond Vegan Foie Gras: Tasting Tofu Misozuke by Dana Velden

The result of all this press was a lot of orders for tofu misozuke coming from all over the country. The Tasting Table article in particular was a doozy. In addition to the hundreds of orders that came in just the first week the article went up, but all our local stores had to put in restock request as well. We had to break up and fulfill the mailorders over several different weeks. Still, this was from just one trip to the post office:

Whew – so here we are now in early fall. The long tail of this past summer’s finally tapered off – just in time for our first anniversary coming up, and the busy party trays and gift season!

Northern California Soy and Tofu Festival
LOCATION: San Francisco Japantown Peace Plaza, Post at Buchanan Streets
DATE: June 2, 2012
TIME: Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
PRICE: FREE and OPEN to the public. Affiliated events may charge admission.

After that, head over to the Union Bank Hospitality Room at Japan Center East Mall for the Educational Forum. I will be giving a short presentation about the history and science of tofu misozuke, including its connection to one of Japan’s most famous battle from the 12th century. The presentations are at 12:15pm and 2:50pm. The full schedule can be found at http://soyandtofufest.org/educational-forum/

A new glamor shot of tofu misozuke

Cá Thu Kho Trà Xanh

To make cá thu kho trà xanh, a good fishy fish with high oil content is essential. Dryer fish would not put up a good fight against the stringency of green tea; oily fishy fish on the other might be a bit much by themselves but are very well behaved braised with tea. We love using mackerels or blue fish for this dish.

The original cá kho recipe is absurdly easy. Like other recipes courtesy of Oanh’s mom – we have the full ingredients listing here:

• Fish – 2 filets (or 1 mackerel)
• Nước mắm / fish sauce – 3 tablespoons
• Sugar – 1 teaspoon
• Black pepper – a pinch
• Onions – a few slices / 1 chopped up shallot
• Oil – ½ teaspoon
• Coconut soda – 1 can
• Green tea – 1 tablespoon

A pot of tea, in a way

We put in oil and onions and half of the dry tea into a small cooking pot – that can accomodate our filets in one layer. The fish filets went in next, then the rest of the tea, black pepper, sugar, and fish sauce. We poured in enough coconut soda to cover the filets and simmered for half an hour or until the broth is almost gone. That’s it!

One layer of fish

When we wanted to be fancy, we fished the filets out and placed them on a baking pan. Then we covered them with the cooked tea leaves. A quick broil in the oven dried out the tea and leave a crunchy sweet caramelized crust on the filets.

Incidentally the slightly crunchy caramelized crust was always my favorite part of Northern style cá kho. Southern style filets were too moist (not a bad thing) to achieve that outer crust. But with this combination, we had the best of both styles.

• Downtown Santa Cruz
• West side Santa Cruz
• San Jose
• Half Moon Bay
• Capitola
• Felton

More to be added when confirmed.

But wait, there’s more!

View Rau Om’s tofu misozuke locations in a larger map

We’ve been steadily adding locations at which you can get some tofu misozuke. We’ve been updating our where to buy pages, but haven’t really announced them here on the blog, so here goes:

Retail stores in the East Bay:

• Sacred Wheel Cheese Shop, Oakland
• The Pasta Shop at 4th Street, Berkeley

In San Francisco:

• Rainbow Grocery, Mission

On the menu at:

• Izakaya Sozai, Inner Sunset
• Chotto, Marina/Cow Hollow

In the Peninsula/South Bay:

• Takahashi Market, San Mateo

And of course,  please stop by and say hello at our table at California Avenue Farmers’ Market in Palo Alto on Sundays (year round, rain or shine).

Tofu miso-rooibos-zuke - sampled then split in half so each of us could get a delicious piece.

Rooibos tea is one of my favorite things to drink late at night, when tea tea (from Camellia sinensis) would prevent me from going to sleep. Rooibos tea is more fragrant and less tannic than tea tea. The flavor is earthy yet clean, it’s also the perfect drink to pack for a bracing hike – at least that’s where I first encountered rooibos and it’s stuck ever since.

Oanh and I call each other miso bumpkin sometimes, based on some third hand information about how homemade miso has retreated to the countryside in Japan and the smell of miso given off by someone who makes miso at home stereotypes him as a bumpkin. I have no idea what the social significance of a miso-rooibos scent might be.

But it was a good combination. Rooibos introduced a different sort of complexity to the previously monolithic miso and soy theme. There were the new sweetness of leaf sugars which lessened the sensation of salt and made for a more accessible bite and left a nice after taste. But there’s a price, too – the intensity and starkness of the original tofu misozuke were diminished. Kind of like the difference between an electric blues band and a grizzled porch-bound singer hollerin’ and moanin’ along with a guitar, say. We do think the addition of new flavor complexity outweighed the diminished intensity and created a unique and distinctive variant.

Lastly, we’re experimenting more to optimize combining miso with shiitake. There’s a lot of potential there, but we’re still bouncing between capturing a bit too much shiitake flavor and getting nothing out of them. Back to the laboratory!

To kick off our presence in San Francisco, we will be hosting a tasting of tofu misozuke this Saturday and Sunday.

Location: Rainbow Grocery (1745 Folsom Street @ 13th Street)

Date: Saturday February 11th and Sunday February 12th

Time: 3pm – 7pm

You are cordially invited to experience for yourself this unique and rare delicacy from ancient Japan, now made right here in the Bay Area. You will see for yourself why Oanh & Dang were inspired to spend the next 3 years researching recipes after their first taste of tofu misozuke, and why Rau Om’s tofu misozuke has been earning rave reviews from customers and journalists, chefs, foodies, omnivores, cheese lovers and vegans alike.

The days before Tết are a frenzy of food preparations, including wrapping and cooking bánh tét if one’s from Southern Vietnam. This past Tết season, we went home and learned from Mom a more efficient way to wrap than what was previously described in our previous bánh tét post.

The music included in the video is “Improvisations in the Spring Mode” by our music teacher, the amazing master musician Nguyễn Vĩnh Bảo.

Last year in preparation for Tết we wrote about making bánh tét, the Southern, cylindrical version of bánh chưng. The process for making bánh chưng is mostly the same:

The night before we soaked 1 bag of glutinous rice in water (no pandan leaf as with bánh tét),  soaked shelled mung bean in water, and marinated strips of pork belly in fish sauce (or salt) and black pepper.

The next day, the soaked mung beans (or chickpeas) were boiled in water and mushed snowball style into balls 2 inches across.  We washed previously frozen banana leaves thoroughly, wiped them dry (this took a lot of time, so plan accordingly), then tore them into 12×12 inch squares or narrow strips 6-8 inches across. (Lá dong are the traditional leaves used to wrap bánh chưng  but are hard to find in the States, so we made do with banana leaves.) We then drained and seasoned the sticky rice by adding salt until it was salty to the taste. Don’t under-season your sticky rice. Bland bánh chưng is really not appetizing. Also, no coconut milk, unlike bánh tét.

Now we’re ready to wrap.

First, we laid down a square piece, then the 2 narrow strips, aligning the fibers of the banana leaves as shown:

Banana Leaf Layout for Bánh Chưng

Next, we started laying down the ingredients at the intersection of the strips: half a bowl of sticky rice, then half a ball of beans broken up into finger tip sized chunks or smaller, then 2 strips of pork belly, then the rest of the beans and rice:

Adding ingredients to bánh chưng

Next, we took the 2 sides of the bottom strip of leaf, pulled them up and over the middle of the ingredients pile so the two ends are flat against each other, then folded the two ends down as if they were a single surface. We repeated the same folding steps with the upper of the two strips. Now we had a square package:

Wrapping bánh chưng

In the right half of the illustration above, the bottom leaf strip has been rendered translucent.

Lastly we wrapped the big square piece of banana leaf around our bánh chưng packet. Sometimes we needed  a second big leaf square to give a tight, neat looking package. Cooking twines tied everything together, then it was time to cook.

The bánh chưng packages were placed skinny side up in a pot of water and weighed down with ceramic dishes. They were boiled for six hours with the lid on tight; water was added regularly so the packages remain submerged. After six hours, we fished out the bánh chưng and let them drain and dry overnight.

That’s it! We’ll add pictures from this really fun bánh chưng making session with my grandmother when we can get the photos off of my aunts’ and uncles’ cameras.

Happy New Year of the Dragon! Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!