Los Angeles Tofu Festival, usually known as Tofu Festival or Tofu Fest, was a weekend

matsuri Japanese festivals are traditional festive occasions often celebrated with dance and music in Japan. Many festivals have their roots in Traditional Chinese holidays, traditional Chinese festivals, but have undergone extensive changes over time ...

held every August in

Little Tokyo, Los Angeles Little Tokyo ( ja, リトル・トーキョー) also known as Little Tokyo Historic District, is an ethnically Japanese American district in downtown Los Angeles and the heart of the largest Japanese-American population in North America. It is t ...

from 1995 to 2007. Due to ongoing redevelopment in Little Tokyo there is no longer enough space to hold a festival of the size of Tofu Fest, and it has been canceled indefinitely, the last festival being held in 2007.

Tofu Tofu (), also known as bean curd in English, is a food prepared by coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness; it can be ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', ''extra firm'' or ''super firm ...

is the primary ingredient of dishes and the

cultural icon A cultural icon is a person or an artifact that is identified by members of a culture as representative of that culture. The process of identification is subjective, and "icons" are judged by the extent to which they can be seen as an authentic ...

of the festival, which focuses on innovative

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

and

American cuisine American cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes prepared in the United States. It has been significantly influenced by Europeans, indigenous Native Americans, Africans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and many other cultures an ...

within an ''

obon or just is fusion of the ancient Japanese belief in ancestral spirits and a Japanese Buddhist custom to honor the spirits of one's ancestors. This Buddhist–Confucian custom has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people retu ...

''-like atmosphere. Due to Tofu Fest's wider cultural and commercial appeal, and larger funds to work with (Tofu Fest charges admission into its area), it has outgrown Nisei Week's Street Arts Fair in booths — Tofu Fest's first fair had over 8,000 visitors and over 26,000 visitors by 2004.

History and tradition

Invented by several Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC) board members as a theme for a food festival, Tofu Fest was approved by the LTSC in 1995 and added as a subcommittee to the

Nisei is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants (who are called ). The are considered the second generation, ...

Week Foundation with support from the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) and sponsorship from Hinochi (now

House Foods is one of Japan's largest food manufacturers and brands. It began in 1913 in Osaka as Urakami Shoten and began selling curry in 1926. House Foods is the world's largest manufacturer of Japanese curry, and is well known for its Japanese curry b ...

). Tofu Fest became the first festival in honor of tofu worldwide in 1996. All proceeds go to the LTSC. Tofu Festival used annual themes to both enhance the atmosphere and promote certain goals. A tofu block is Tofu Festival's mascot, which changes appearance and nickname depending on the year's theme. The theme for 2006 was "It’s Hip to Be Square!", featuring the tofu block mascot wearing sunglasses and earrings. The festival was the focus of an episode of Visiting... with Huell Howser that originally aired in Southern California on KCET. The episode featured a visit to the third annual festival, showcasing the variety of dishes available and reactions from tofu devotees and first-timers alike. https://blogs.chapman.edu/huell-howser-archives/2016/12/07/tofu-festival-visiting-620/

Attractions

Beer, Wine & Sake Garden

A selection of

sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...

and

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

was served in a sectioned off portion of Tofu Fest, supplementing Little Tokyo's own beer gardens and Nisei Week's attractions. The sale of alcohol was under debate by the festival's committee in 1994 in regards to making the festival more family friendly.

Celebrity Chefs

Famous chefs exhibit their craft on a cooking platform, with fair goers getting the chance to taste dishes from the demonstrations.

Masaharu Morimoto is a Japanese chef, best known as an Iron Chef on the Japanese TV cooking show ''Iron Chef'' and its spinoff '' Iron Chef America''. He is also known for his unique style of presenting food. Career Morimoto received practical training in sush ...

Iron Chef is a Japanese television cooking show produced by Fuji Television. The series, which premiered on October 10, 1993, was a stylized cook-off featuring guest chefs challenging one of the show's resident "Iron Chefs" in a timed cooking battle bui ...

was a recurring guest, appearing in the 2006 festival.

Children's Pavilion

Children were previously given an additional area to enjoy the festival, as parts of the festival, like the alcohol garden, were unsuitable. After 2006, Children's Pavilion was no longer a featured event.

Entertainment Stage

Bands and artists appear live at the festival, ranging from instrumental groups, such as

taiko are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called and to the form of ensemble drumming m ...

and

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

, to hip hop groups like

Blackalicious Blackalicious was an American hip-hop duo from Sacramento, California, made up of rapper Gift of Gab and DJ/producer Chief Xcel. They are noted for Gift of Gab's often tongue-twisting, multisyllabic, complex rhymes and Chief Xcel's soulful pr ...

Tofu Eating Contest

The tofu

eating contest Competitive eating, or speed eating, is an activity in which participants compete against each other to eat large quantities of food, usually in a short time period. Contests are typically eight to ten minutes long, although some competitions c ...

was a race to eat a 14-ounce block of tofu in the shortest amount of time. Several elimination rounds are held before the final battle and winner's ceremony, where a prize is given to the winner on the entertainment stage.

References

External links

Little Tokyo Service Center official website

Nisei Week's official website
{{cite web , url=http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm , title=Interview with Maggie Downs , date=March 31, 2006 , publisher=The Desert Sun , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928035243/http://joanjettbadrep.com/cgi-bin/fullStory.cgi?archive=currnews&story=20060405-01shore.htm , archive-date=September 28, 2007 , url-status=live}

Japanese-American cuisine Festivals in Los Angeles Tofu Japanese-American history Japanese-American culture in Los Angeles Recurring events established in 1996 Food and drink festivals in the United States Recurring events disestablished in 2007