What is Yōfūtōfu?

Yōfūtōfu is a site about cooking non-Japanese food in Japan.

Yōfūtōfu (洋風豆腐) is Japanese for western-style tofu, or would be if it weren’t a made-up word (and, yeah, it should probably be yōfūdōfu, but tofu is more recognizable).

Yōfūtōfu is 95% ovo-lacto vegetarian, the remaining 5% being misunderstood labels or sneaky katsuobushi.

Yōfūtōfu tries to replicate familiar non-Japanese foods with unfamiliar Japanese ingredients.

Yōfūtōfu starts from scratch.

Yōfūtōfu shops at the foreign foods store, but makes most meals with ingredients commonly available in small-town Tohoku supermarkets.

Yōfūtōfu won’t ever force you to read kanji.

Yōfūtōfu learned to cook from dad, Julia Child, Madhur Jaffrey, Harold McGee, the internet, and a lot of screwing up.

Yōfūtōfu cooks French, Indian, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Italian, German, Californian, Midwestern, and sometimes even Japanese foods.

Yōfūtōfu loves chickpeas, pizza, the family Brassicaceae, singing old country songs while doing the dishes, and you.

Here’s what we’re assuming about you:

• you’re a vegetarian, or at least interested in eating meat-free sometimes
• you understand enough Japanese to find things in the supermarket if I tell you their Japanese names

What we’re not assuming:

• you have access to a foreign foods store (mostly)
• you know how to do much beyond boil water
• you have a bunch of fancy kitchen equipment