At Carleton, of course we'd have a tradition in celebration of a squishy white gelatinous cube. Carleton's annual Tofu Fest has been going on since 1997.
Green House and the Animal Rights Coalition teamed up to get funding from Residential Life to buy 25 blocks of tofu and celebrate this maligned, but really quite delicious foodstuff. They set up tables out on the Chapel lawn to show off their tofu cooking creations, including tofu guacamole, barbecued tofu, peanut butter soy cookies, and the “Chocolate Banana Peanut Butter Tofu Pie.” In my opinion, this pie ought to have been called the “You’ve Got to be Kidding Me” pie, because it tasted like it had about a pint of whipped cream in it, but all the dairy in the pie was replaced by tofu.
There was a place on the tablecloth for students to share their tofu haiku:
Beautiful beancurd
Makes my stomach smile
Happy Tofu Fest!
The official Tofu Toss was kind of like an egg toss, but with a pound block of tofu. “It’ll crumble, but the last people with stuff to keep tossing win,” said Christina Gehring ’10, one of the organizers from Green House. Every time a tofu tosser caught the tofu, he or she had to take a step backwards before tossing it again. Tofu inevitably got everywhere, but it was fun.
Mike Stevens ’10 tried to talk people into a tofu-eating contest. “I’m a pretty slow eater, so you’re probably going to beat me.” Eventually he got some takers, and the winner, Kelly Thompson ’09 won the coveted prize of tofu princessdom.
This year’s Tofu Fest was organized at the last minute, so it was a bit smaller than fests of the past. But Christina is optimistic about the future. “Next year, it will be much bigger.”
So, what is Green House’s favorite use for tofu? “We throw it in things like lasagna,” says Christina.
And here’s a recipe for the chocolate banana peanut butter pie (the Tofu Fest people made a crust out of crumbled Oreo cookies):
http://thebakingbird.blogspot.com/2008/05/finally-i-have-blog-ive-been-dreaming.html
