How many types of tofu are there? There isn’t an...
Read MoreDon't know Chinese tofus?
Preview Chapter 1 of Broken Cuisine and explore five wondrous ingredients that taste like cheese, phyllo pastry, and more.
BROKEN CUISINE IS out!!!
Chinese tofus changed my life.
Broken Cuisine is how they can change yours too.
Hi — I'm George, the Tofu Guy.
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 plant-based building blocks.
American chefs have long cooked with beans, lentils, and mock meats. But the foundations of Chinese food also included half a dozen types of seitan and over 20 varieties of tofu!
In Broken Cuisine, we reimagine what Western cooking would look like if it had more of these building blocks. 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 cooking with them.
If you’d like to join us, get yourself a copy of Broken Cuisine today. We’ll be waiting for you in the kitchen!
–George
Our team: David Lespron, George Stiffman, Vanessa Lauren, Elisa Leone, and Ryan Tanaka. (Not pictured: Phyllis Hansen.)
