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BROKEN CUISINE IS live!!!

Chinese tofus changed my life.

Broken Cuisine is how they can change yours too.

Don't know Chinese tofus?

Preview Chapter 1 of Broken Cuisine and explore five wondrous ingredients that taste like cheese, phyllo pastry, and more.

Hi, I'm George Stiffman.

During high school I gave up meat, and I felt lost. Subtractive plant-based foods — meat dishes without the meat — left me sad and hungry. Substitutive replacements were only one step better.

Everything changed one summer when a Chinese couple took me into their home for a language exchange. My host parents were keen to show off the best of their culture, and every night they would take me to a new restaurant, serving a different regional subcuisine. Cauldrons of silken tofu pudding, luxuriating in anise-spiced gravy… laminated sesame buns, fragrant like chocolate babka… tofus that tasted like cheese, and bread, and fish cakes, and melted, and…

How was vegan Chinese food this diverse!! I wondered. And where had American cuisine gone wrong??

To find answers, I returned to China, living there for nearly two years. I learned to cook in Buddhist restaurant kitchens, ate my way across dozens of towns, cities, and villages, and even apprenticed in a fifth-generation tofu shop. By the end of my time, it was obvious: Chinese cuisine simply had more building blocks.

American chefs have long cooked with beans, lentils, and mock meats. But the foundations of Chinese food were far more diverse: beans, lentils, and mock meats, but also half a dozen varieties of seitan and over 20 types of tofu!!

In Broken Cuisine, we reimagine Western cooking with broader foundations. We learn how tofu is made, how varieties differ, and what makes each type shine. We look at how to find and buy five delicious, rare varieties, which is easier than you might think (!), and we become comfortable at cooking with them.

If this sounds exciting, get yourself a copy of Broken Cuisine today. We’ll be waiting for you in the kitchen!

–George