Tofu has been a staple in Japanese cuisine for centuries, and the country offers numerous variations that satisfy any palate or diet. For this edition of our “Culture of Japan” series, we visited Tofu Shokudo, a specialty restaurant in Tokyo where the tofu craftsmen taught us all about how tofu is made and different ways to enjoy it.

Japanese monks traveling throughout China during the Nara period, 710-784 CE, learned the recipe for this early form of tofu brought it back to Japan where it slowly spread throughout the country’s Buddhist monasteries, eventually becoming a staple in shōjin ryōri, or Buddhist temple cuisine. From there it was introduced to the aristocracy ...

But tofu has been the dietary mainstay of monastic life in Japan for about a millennium—it was imported from China and Korea, along with Buddhism—and it has never lost the soulful, exalted ...

"Tofu is an integral part of the traditional food culture of Japan and must not be allowed to disappear. Tofu can be used in a variety of dishes, from miso soup to chilled tofu and simmered dishes. That’s why it’s an inseparable part of Japanese life.

Take an exclusive look into the art of making tofu at a workshop deep in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture. At Sennen Tofu ("thousand-year tofu”), a small, family-run shop, you can learn how to make tofu or frozen tofu, a delicacy unique to these cold climes.