Thanks for supporting! I'm not sure if Amazon has dropped the price yet... hopefully they should today or tomorrow.
That's interesting. I wonder how Singapore compares to China for tofu?
My impression is that Singaporean food overlaps most with Southeastern (Fujian and Cantonese) Chinese cooking, but those two cuisines use fewer varieties than other regions of China. Granted, I've never been, so this could be very wrong! Does anyone have a better sense?
Thanks Jessica! I'm so with you on the Chinese alt protein scene... would love to see more folks promoting these foods abroad!
Ooh, thanks for catching the international e-book pricing - just messaged Amazon and they'll correct that today or tomorrow.
I think this is a pretty open question. I'm more skeptical of plant-based meats than a lot of folks, largely because I think "narratives" matter more than "taste" for food selection. Narratives scale, whereas taste is extremely individualized. But dominant food narratives in China (and in the US!) ascribe a lot more value to things like local, natural, farm-to-table, cultural than the things that PBM are good at.
Eli, I'm sorry I just saw your message! This program sounds really interesting. I missed the signup deadline but will shoot them a message. Thanks for the recommendation!
Yum, thanks for sharing that link! Cool to hear that there's exciting tofu happening in Kenya. And absolutely, I think you're right - making tofu hip doesn't necessarily mean it will spread. That said, it's hard to imagine the tofu market growing without it becoming a more desirable food, and that seems easiest via restaurants for now. A lot of work to still be done!
Huh I guess I haven't chatted with (or know) enough influencers, but I'm familiar with some that do try products for free, and sometimes post about them. Maybe that's the exception though?
Turns out my last comment was wrong! Mary's Test Kitchen (https://www.instagram.com/marystestkitchen/) has found that by removing the starch from other legumes, you can make soy-like tofu out of them. Haven't tried yet but looks legit!
Too cool - I'd love to hear your favorite ways to eat it :)
And thank you for offering! Just sent you a message
Interesting idea! Funny enough, black bean tofu is actually made with black soybeans, not black beans. The standard beans don't curdle the same way - too much starch content - so they can only form starch not protein gels. Would be cool to see more of them, though, and be able to better personalize towards different restaurants
Thanks Desampo! The tofu production process is pretty specialized, so I don't think there's much equipment overlap with other food categories. Could be missing something though!
To flesh this out more, my thinking is something like, WWOTF PR team probably has a theory of impact, which might dwarf the impact of the other ones, and it seems suboptimal if groups are focusing on the wrong one. Maybe their primary theory of impact is shifting the longtermism/AI overton window (attracting as many hits/eyeballs as possible, mass outreach), or maybe it’s attracting allies in positions of power, or maybe it’s inspiring more readers to pursue longtermist careers. Or maybe it’s something else. Getting more of our members to read the book see...
But it’s also possible that creating these isn’t in a student's comparative advantage, especially if they aren’t already that knowledgeable about the skills they want to teach.
Right, this is what I suspect. It's naturally more efficient to expand a pre-existing program than create a new one from scratch, especially in highly technical fields.
Do you have more details on what you’re envisioning here? What sorts of workshops do you think would be most useful?
I don't have a great inside view on this, but the sorts of workshops Sydney has been running see...
So I don't think people should feel discouraged just from their low offer rate very much.
To clarify, is your main point here that that AI safety orgs could absorb a lot more talent, if folks were more qualified? If so, that's also my understanding. I doubt, however, that general university groups would be the optimal way to build qualified and motivated applicants, because student clubs inherently spend a lot of time on non-development focused activities. It seems like outsourcing the recruitment pipeline to, say, Cambridge's AGI Safety Fundamentals ...
Suji is incredible! We've been calling it "Shanghai tofu" in our book, since vegetarian chicken can sometimes be misinterpreted as a mock meat.
Funny enough, if you freeze and thaw it a couple times, the crumb becomes very bread-like. Stew it in a creamy, sweet sauce, refrigerate it overnight, and it will have an almost "tres leches cake" consistency. Such a cool ingredient!
Thanks for sharing your concerns here and taking time to write this all out. I agree that framing these ingredients in a sensitive way is really important.
I would second having Chinese people on your staff, as well as looking into ways your project can benefit the rural villages whose people developed the tofu.
I'm definitely looking for other allies and partners!! If you know anyone, I'd love to connect :)
...I've heard a general rule to avoid implicitly playing into these stereotypes is to ask yourself whether the ethnic descriptor is necessary to get the poi
Have you considered that by increasing the variety, availability and tastiness of tofus, you could be extending the amount of time a current vegetarian/vegan remains committed? I think that as a movement we tend to focus on new converts, and neglect maintaining those who currently avoid animal products, especially in light of evidence that many vegetarian/vegans eventually revert to eating meat.
This is a great point, Bryan! I wonder how a "support vegetarians" angle would compare to a "help meat eaters reduce" branding. More broadly, it seems l...
I'd be interested to hear more about the tofus you have in mind.
There are quite a few "great fit" varieties. The ones that seem easiest to import and have the clearest uses cases are probably:
Thanks for your pointers, Nate! I'm also curious - what sorts of tofus have you tried?
I'm with you on the challenge of building a new market from the ground up. That said, on the supply side, I'd expect importing palettes of rare tofus would be a lot easier than, say, building a production site or finding suitable co-packers for a new plant-based meat company. Especially since a lot of these tofus are already imported, just on a small scale, but from producers that have a lot of capacity. (It also helps that they can all be frozen, unlike simple tofus.)
Tha...
These are good points. It's crazy how the faces of western veganism have been predominantly white, despite the fact that most veg culture originated outside of Europe. Very much with you on "celebrating" rather than "discovering," and being clear about cultural roots.
Appreciate your feedback!
Fair enough! I definitely stated that point too strongly, more of a "if you just order tofu for guests, without much meat/seafood, it could come across as rude." Thanks for the pointer!
And glad to meet another tofu lover :)
This is a fair question! I should have added more explanation to the post.
TLDR: tofu is like chicken. Just as you would never cook chicken feet like chicken breast, so too do different tofus have vastly different uses, forms, and production methods. In particular, a few varieties that are "rare" or uncommon on China (and mostly absent elsewhere) seem particularly well suited to western cooking styles. I think of these like "chicken breasts," whereas common tofus have about as much western appeal as "chicken feet."
If you're curious, I can shoot ...
This is a good point - branding is so key. Creating contrast between normal and rare tofus could turn out to be a really powerful marketing tool, or make us sad and un-credible.
Very cool that you've spent time in Hunan. I'd love to visit someday. And absolutely, it blows my mind how people talk about western veganish cities - it's a thousand times easier in China
Huh if only we had a "Samuel Adams tofu" to go with the beer! Tofu's history in the States is pretty recent, but there may be something juicy there.
Personally, I would love to have more kinds of tofu to try. I agree with Jeremy that getting these exotic tofus in front of some food industry experts to get their feedback would probably be a good idea.
Absolutely with you this!
Thanks for all your pointers!
I wasn't able to find a reliable survey with some cursory googling, but from personal experience and what I did see (for instance, this) it seems like getting a majority of meals from eating out is rare.
You're definitely right here. Food expenditures at and away from home are pretty split, but given that the cost of eating out is higher, people eat more meals at home. The reason I think it might make sense to focus first on food service is less about end strategy and more about the sequence. Since chefs can better c...
Interesting points on soybean meal vs soybean oil consumption.
I'm less concerned about the fish sauce question since we'd be promoting rare tofus within western cooking. (And most of Asia, especially the regions that use a lot of fish sauce, don't use these specific tofu varieties.)
Thanks for the pointers!
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the rec - I've chatted with a few folks from GFI. We'll try to engage with them more as we move forward.
That's a great point about modeling concrete scenarios (like types/numbers of distribution points), rather than just assuming some percentage of market growth. I'll try fleshing that out a bit. The reason I'm bullish on potential market size is that most common tofus have abysmal product-market fit outside the Asian American community, whereas rare tofus (at least in our research) seem to fare much better. If that pattern holds, and we can find high leverage marketing methods, it would seem strange if rare tofus don't eventually eclipse the former. L...
Thank you. Now I'm curious how New Zealand compares to the US stuff!