I almost skipped class that day.

“October 14, 2003: Tofu Day.” The words stared up at me from the syllabus.

So far, I had enjoyed our deep dives into the fundamentals of Japanese cuisine at sushi school. Each lesson helped me grasp new nuances and helped keep me fed as my money ran dangerously low. But despite my growling stomach, nothing felt appetizing about a day dedicated to tofu.

As had become my ritual for sushi school, I devoured the reading assignment. I knew tofu so well I could’ve recited its origin story, texture categories, and the exact grammatical moment when tofu becomes dofu*. I knew practically everything. Except one tiny thing. I didn’t know how it tasted.

I didn’t grow up eating tofu. If it was even available in our grocery store, it never made its way into our cart. In small-town Mississippi, tofu wasn’t something you brought up in polite Southern food society. It was something you heard about on TV, usually alongside some jibber jabber about sprouts and wheatgrass.

I flipped through our textbook, Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji, hoping to find some glimmer of hope. I reread the recipe for Agedashi Dofu. Tsuji-san wrote: “The ingredients are very simple and there is no new twist to the deep-frying technique, but the flavor is sophisticated.”

That told me nothing.

In class, I watched my classmates light up as Sensei placed dishes in front of us. Some pointed eagerly, recognizing each one with affection. Then came the part I dreaded: a cube of plain tofu, placed in my palm. Everyone else popped it in their mouths without hesitation. I hesitated. Maybe too long, because suddenly, all eyes were on me.

Would it be rubbery? Smell weird? Taste like a sponge?
I closed my eyes and prayed: Please don’t let me gag.

And then… it melted. Creamy, delicate, luscious. Mostly flavorless and quiet. Softly confident. And everything I’d assumed about tofu collapsed in a single bite.

As we moved through each dish, I was struck by how the ingredients supported the tofu instead of disguising it. This wasn’t tofu trying to be anything else. It was tofu for the sake of tofu and that was a very good thing. When we finally reached Agedashi Dofu, it blew me away. The crispy crust. The silky center. The light broth sliding across the tofu ever so delicately. Ginger. Scallions. Simplicity. Sophistication.

I came to class that day prepared to endure tofu, not enjoy it. But what I learned was that we often resist simplicity. We flavor, disguise, and twist things until they’re unrecognizable out of fear that simple won’t be enough.

But sometimes, food doesn’t need reinvention. Sometimes, it just needs to be itself.

*The transition from "tofu" to "dofu" happens when tofu is part of a compound word.