On production day at the Heiwa Soy Beanery, owner Jeff Wolovitz clicks on the lights about 5 a.m., fills giant kettles with water and cranks up the stove. By 5:20, things are starting to get steamy and Jeff begins a kind of tofu-making dance. “It’s physically demanding work but I enjoy the rhythm of it,” he says. “I’m constantly running up and down this production line.” By 5 p.m., he and a production team that joins him at various points in the day will have ground, cooked, drained and shaped mostly Maine-grown, all organic soybeans into about 600 pounds of some of the freshest, creamiest, tastiest slabs of tofu Naturally editors have put past their lips.

In the eight years since Jeff and his wife Maho Hisakawa started Heiwa (pronounced hay-wah, the word means “peace” in Japanese), Jeff estimates they’ve made well over 400,000 pounds of tofu. Impressive when you consider their humble beginnings as “rogue” farmer’s market vendors, who made the stuff out of a garage located on the parking lot where their local Camden Farmer’s Market was held. “We’d just throw open the garage doors and start selling fresh tofu,” he says. “We did that for four years before we became official market vendors.”
During market season, you can still find Jeff and his daughters Ina and Ami selling both fresh and vacuum-packed Heiwa Tofu. Maho works behind the scenes, often pulling a shift labeling and packing tofu for shipment. But they’ve since moved production to a their current facility—a renovated gas station that was completed last fall with the help of a crowd-sourcing campaign and their fans in the local community. Now they distribute fresh, bulk tofu to school cafeterias, restaurants, and health food grocers and the sealed-up version of their product to grocers and other outlets throughout Maine and parts of New England.

Jeff now jokingly refers to himself as “the supreme ruler of the ‘tofuniverse.’” But he didn’t set out to wear that crown. “In college I studied astronomy and earned a degree in science,” he says. “Then I decided what’s going on billions of light years away didn’t matter that much. I wanted to do something that was more relevant to what was going on here on this planet.”

So he went in the opposite direction, working the earth on organic farms. It was a somewhat unusual path for a guy who grew up in the suburbs of Philly. “I fell in love with farming and being a part of the local food system—of producing wholesome food and feeding people,” Jeff says. “I think it was in the stars—even at age 13 or 14 I was an avid label reader, looking for food made with few ingredients that I could actually pronounce.”

To pay his mortgage and support his family, Jeff taught high school chemistry for a while—a career path that would still allow him to farm in the summer months. “But I never really felt that comfortable with my role as a teacher,” he says. “I wanted to get back to being a part of the food system.” When vegetable farming didn’t seem a practical way to make a living—given he had no land to till—he and Maho, who moved to the U.S. from Japan with her family at age 12, began looking for a food product Maine residents might be craving. “When we hit upon the idea of tofu,” he says, “Maho was pretty excited. She was always disappointed when we went to the natural food store to get fresh, bulk tofu and it would end up being kind of slimy.”

The two had started experimenting with making fresh tofu in their kitchen when fate apparently intervened. “Somebody hooked us up with a guy—also a high school science teacher—who made tofu in the late ‘80s,” Jeff says. “He had all this equipment that had been sitting in his barn for 10 years. We were able to purchase it a very reasonable price and it just sealed the deal. After meeting him I thought, ‘Alright, you can do this.’”

He had found his niche—or, maybe more accurately, his niche had found him. Jeff has since used the commercial-grade equipment and his knowledge of the scientific method to hone in on small-batch tofu that has top-notch flavor and texture. “It has to taste great,” he says. “But texture is also so critical to what makes ours a great product. It’s creaminess makes it all purpose. You can put it in the blender and make it smooth. We make cheesecake and smoothies out of it. But it’s also delicious chilled with all types of spoon-over sauces.”

Now Jeff has settled comfortably into his place in the food chain, making a healthy protein product and supporting growers of organic, non-GMO soybeans. Even the sole by-product of his production is beneficial to the local food system—the hundreds of gallons of nitrogen-rich soybean meal is picked up by nearby farmers who compost it and turn it back into vegetables. But his family’s business is also a factor in the bigger equation of land use and food security. “We did some calculations on how much protein an acre of soybeans processed into tofu creates compared to an acre of grass-fed beef,” he says. “According to the calculations I got…there are over 200,000 grams of protein per acre of soybeans and the beef translates to about 6,600 grams per acre.”

Naturally, we can get behind those healthy numbers.

Tofu 101

HERE ARE A FEW TIPS FOR KEEPING TOFU FRESH ONCE IT HITS YOUR FRIDGE.

1. When you buy fresh tofu or after you’ve opened a vacuum-sealed block, store the portions in water in an airtight container. Change the water daily and use within a week or two. The water leeches bacteria from the tofu to keep it from souring and prevents it from drying.
2. Vacuum-packed tofu will stay fresh for up to 30 days.
3. Jeff prefers cooking the entire piece of fresh or unpackaged tofu as desired all at once for convenience. If your family is like his, you’ll be likely to eat those leftovers sooner.
4. You can freeze tofu, but it will change its texture from smooth and creamy to chewy and spongy. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; thawed tofu soaks up marinade better than fresh.
5. When buying fresh, bulk tofu from an Asian market or specialty grocer, cook it before you eat it. Though all tofu is technically cooked, unpackaged fresh tofu might not be pasteurized. Walk away from fresh tofu that smells the least bit sour.

Recipes

Maho Hisakawa considers tofu a “convenience food” that is fridge-ready to be served on its own or easily integrated into a meal. Along with experimenting with ways to prepare and preserve tofu, Maho creates dishes that serve up a twist on traditional Japanese recipes and develops modern recipes as well. Here are a couple of her family’s favorite dishes.

BREAKFAST TOAST

SERVES 4

“Here is a delicious way to eat your favorite homemade sauerkraut first thing in the morning. It’s a sustaining breakfast that I came up with when I was pregnant with Ina. What could be better than good bread, good local tofu, good sauerkraut, and plenty of butter?”

1 lb Heiwa tofu, sliced into 1⁄2-inch slabs
2 tablespoons olive oil 2 tablespoons tamari 4 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
4-6 slices of bread, toasted Butter
Sauerkraut

► To prepare tofu, mix tamari, water and vinegar in a small bowl or jar. Heat cast iron skillet on medium heat, add olive oil, and gently place tofu on it. Cook both sides until slightly browned, about 5 minutes each side, then add tamari mixture. Flip tofu once and turn off heat when liquid is gone.
► Toast bread and butter it generously. Put the tofu slabs on top; finish with a generous mound of sauerkraut.

WARM TOFU WITH SESAME-GARLIC TAMARI

SERVES 4-6

1 lb Heiwa tofu, cut into 3⁄4- to 1-inch cubes 3 tablespoons tamari
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon maple syrup
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1⁄4 cup scallions, minced
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds (see below) 1 teaspoon chili pepper, minced (optional)

► Combine all ingredients except tofu in a small dish. To warm tofu, put the tofu cubes in a pot of cold water and place over medium heat until the water comes to a simmer. Spoon tamari mixture over warm tofu and serve.
► To toast sesame seeds: Put 1 cup of brown unhulled sesame seeds into a cast iron pan. Add 2 tablespoons of water and stir with a spoon, so that all the seeds are wet. Place the pan over medium heat and stir constantly for 5-7 minutes. As the seeds start popping, continue to stir and toast for another 2-3 minutes until they’re fragrant. Be careful not to burn them. When done, the sesame seeds should have a crunchy texture. Transfer onto a plate to cool, then store in airtight jar.

FRESH TOFU WITH SUMISO

SERVES 4-6

“This is a wonderful summertime side dish or snack. The combination of fresh, cold tofu and sumiso is very refreshing. We prefer the light colored, one-year sweet miso for this recipe. Sumiso lasts for a couple of weeks in the fridge, so we keep a container of it available. It also complements raw or cooked vegetables.”

1 lb Heiwa tofu, cut into 3⁄4-inch cubes
2 tablespoons miso
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar 1 tablespoon maple syrup 4 scallions, minced (optional)

► Mix miso, vinegar, and maple syrup in small bowl. Spoon onto cubed tofu and sprinkle scallions on top, or dip as you eat!