Old School or New School? Eggy’s Eggless Egg Salad

To prepare for this month’s Culinary Smackdown: Battle Tofu, I knew I had to stand toe to toe with my tofu past. After an invigorating cleanse digging into the memory vault and writing about it, I thought I was ready to bring a freshly robed bean curd dish from its corner of the Smackdown ring, hosted this month by Anonymous Boxer. Or was I?

As much as I’d love to figure out how to replicate my favorite hot and sour soup, from the now-retired folks of the Szechwan Wok in Silverton (good for them, sad for me), that direction seemed too obvious – and their soup’s perfect balance too out-of-reach for me to pursue.

Then I thought of the vegan “eggless egg salad” I’ve heard nothing but raves about from Fresh Table at Findlay Market. It always looks sassy and enticing in their prepared foods case, although it’s not one of their dishes I’ve tasted yet, and I don’t have a photo of it. Here, however, are some other sprightly Fresh Table offerings.

After a little research, I confirmed Fresh Table’s eggless egg salad is made with tofu, but Chef Meredith Twombly wasn’t giving up her recipe. I was stymied at the prospect of trying to replicate a dish I’ve never tasted. But then my mind veered in another direction, to my very favorite, very old school egg salad recipe.

It’s from the 1975 edition of Joy of Cooking, a recipe that got edited out when Cincinnatian Ethan Becker – son of Marion Rombauer Becker and the grandson of Irma Rombauer, Joy’s prior authors – updated this go-to cookbook for its 1997 edition. I don’t think Asparagus and Egg Salad is nearly as far afield for a contemporary audience as squirrel recipes, for instance. But perhaps Ethan thought it was too much of a throwback to a ladies’ luncheon dish to warrant including when he wanted to make room for a whole new chapter on beans and tofu.

Aside from the inclusion of asparagus, which I love in any form, what I like best about this Joy egg salad is the dressing, made not with mayo (traditional or vegan) but with sour cream punched up with capers, grated onion, vinegar or caper juice, and a pinch of curry powder. I sometimes use this dressing for potato salad, and it makes a good dip for crudités as well.

The texture of tofu is not that different from that of hard-boiled eggs, and my theory was that the curry powder would impart a yellowish color to the dish. Some curry powders would, but I chose to use a sweet curry brought from India by a friend, which wasn’t quite so yellow, along with smoked paprika from Colonel De’s of Findlay Market (who will be opening additional outlets at the upcoming Jungle Jim’s at Eastgate and the Findlay-esque Friendly Market in Northern Kentucky!).


So how did my tofu variation on an egg salad theme fare? I was a woman on a mission to extract as much water as I could from my block of firm tofu, fearing it would dilute the dressing and rob it of its zing. So I spent darn near a whole evening pressing my paper-towel-wrapped tofu. Good thing I’d just stocked up on paper towel, because I kept rewrapping the tofu, and it just kept giving off more liquid.

I sampled a bit of pressed tofu and dressing before I went to bed that night and was disappointed. So I tried two alternatives. I marinated half my tofu cubes overnight in the dressing and the rest in a bit of sherry vinegar and olive oil, which I planned to top with dressing when I finally assembled the dish. When I got home from work last night, the dressing-marinated bean curd was astonishingly dry, having soaked up almost all the dressing, yet without gaining as much pungency as I would have liked. When I tried topping the cubes marinated in vinegar with the dressing, the balance still seemed a bit off. So I just mixed my two marination experiments together, globbed on more dressing, plunked them on a bed of spinach, and added the asparagus, sliced olives, and more capers.

Not half bad, if I say so myself. Here’s the 1975 Joy of Cooking Asparagus and Egg Salad recipe as photographed from my well-worn copy of the book.

If anyone's interested in a typed out version that includes my tofu tweaks, let me know and I'll come back and update this post. Right now, I’m scrambling to make Boxer’s deadline for Smackdown submissions. Head on over to her place to check out the other entries, and stay tuned for her announcement of this month’s winner, who will earn bragging rights and the right to select the theme or key ingredient of next month’s Smackdown and become next month’s host and judge for this friendly round-robin cooking/blogging competition.

P.S. If you really want to amp up this eggless egg salad, serve it with slices of toasted baguette slathered in truffle butter, like I did. Ladies who lunch, eat your hearts out!

Peace out, eggy

Tofu Anarchy and the Culinary Smackdown

 Image from Oberlin Alumni Magazine. So Oberlin.

I loved a lot of things about Oberlin, the small college in northeast Ohio I attended in the late 1970s. But the Autumn of Tofu Anarchy was not one of them.

Like most Oberlin students of any era (we call ourselves “Obies"), I was young, impressionable, and idealistic. My high school years were awkward. I’d been desperate to go "away" to college and begin my “real life.” Upon arriving in the small town of the same name, surrounded by farm fields, I delighted in meeting smart, inquisitive, talented, creative people from all over the country, and all over the world. We stayed up late discussing what was important to us, and learning from others.

There were aspiring opera singers who devoted themselves to their craft, day and night, in the practice rooms of the “Con” (Oberlin’s music conservatory). A rich kid from NYC who used his 1000+ vintage jazz LP collection to decorate his dorm room in lieu of furniture. My first college boyfriend, a Grateful Dead head desperate to get out of the infirmary in time to see Jerry Garcia perform on campus at Finney Chapel, who requested I bring him clean underwear and help him walk to the gig. I don’t know what felt more awkward at age 18, being asked to perform this duty, or realizing said boyfriend’s dorm-room drawers were so filled with cassette tapes (top drawer for his Dead tapes, below for “other” music) that I had to go hunting for where a boy like that kept his, er, drawers.

There was more than music filling my ears at Oberlin. I was surrounded by more wide-ranging knowledge and worldly experience than I ever expected to encounter at that tender age. If I mentioned the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as the favorite thing I’d ever learned about physics, I could count on someone in the room knowing what it was without having to explain.

We were earnest. We were passionate. We were open. We were Obies. We were grateful to be part of an engaging community that “got” us, and where we could be ourselves.

The Autumn of Tofu Anarchy was a Harkness thing, Harkness being one of the six or seven dining co-ops on campus at that time. Oberlin has a long and proud history of dining and residence co-ops dating back to 1950. The idea is that instead of paying a food service staff, students perform the menu-planning, food-ordering, cooking, serving, and cleaning duties required to feed themselves, resulting in a price break, more decision-making power, and better food than in dorm cafeterias.

From Oberlin Alumni Magazine

There were always more students who wanted to eat in a co-op than there were openings, so access was determined via lottery. The first semester I was eligible to participate, I drew a high number, and by the time it came up, only one co-op had openings left: Harkness, the vegetarian co-op. That didn’t bother me a whit. I like vegetables, and I looked forward to healthier options than I could get at a regular dining hall.

But that particular fall semester, a group of Harkness folks decided we should run the co-op by anarchy instead of the tried-and-true co-op system of assigning jobs via lottery, with specific dates, times, and responsibilities attached. They urged the group to trust in our classmates’ willingness to volunteer for whatever needed to be done, free of the “tyranny” of assignments. And we would govern ourselves, not by voting on policies and procedures – with resulting “winners” and “losers” – but by achieving “consensus.” As I recall, there was even some brouhaha about how we began down the road to anarchy, when its proponents insisted that voting for or against it would be an inherent contradiction.

We were earnest. We were passionate. We were open. We were Obies. So we went along with anarchy. For a while.

At the beginning of the term, there was plenty of enthusiasm and volunteering. But as that idyllic Indian Summer yielded to the gray skies of a north Ohio fall and the demands of our classes closed in on us, the food turned as colorless as the surrounding landscape. Dinner after dinner of brown rice. Lots and lots of tofu. Sometimes nary a vegetable in sight. If we were lucky, someone actually made whole wheat bread. If we were luckier, the bread wasn't leaden. We had a whole lotta beige food going on.

Dinners, instead of being a respite from the day’s studies and a chance to enjoy the company of friends, turned into every-night meetings where we grappled with this anarchy thing and found ourselves farther and farther from consensus.

Vegetables did make a welcome reappearance for our Thanksgiving meal (we had classes the following Friday and Saturday as usual, so most students stayed on campus). It was the one meal of the year at Harkness that deviated from vegetarianism, with a turkey or two rounding out the spread, and a variety of holiday stuffings (one of which may or may not have been spiked with THC).

As we headed into the December home stretch of term papers and finals, caffeine and all-nighters, it was clear we couldn’t count on volunteerism to keep us well fed and healthy. Our experiment with anarchy had failed, and that was a consensus. We dragged ourselves home for holiday break, grateful for sleep and as much home-cooking as our mothers could dish up.

There have been many times in my post-college years where life has batted me around to the point where nothing is more welcome than sound sleep and being well fed by others. Although I can no longer claim the idealism of my youth, at heart I’m still an Obie. Still earnest. Still passionate. Still open – even to tofu. And grateful to be part of an engaging (online) community that “gets” me and where I can be myself. My blogger friends – smart, inquisitive, talented, creative people from all over the country, and all over the world – share what is important to them, and I continue to learn.

Especially when it comes to this friendly little food blogging contest called the Culinary Smackdown. It’s a great incentive to stretch myself in my kitchen, and I always come away with new ideas and a lot of inspiration from the other contestants. Our last Smackdown winner, Anonymous Boxer, is hosting and judging this month’s Battle Tofu. As part of her “prize,” which is mainly bragging rights, Boxer chose this month’s theme. You can find her pre-battle warm-up post here. The deadline is Wednesday, 1/18/12, and two fine contenders are already up with their entries.

Lori of Fake Food Free, a Kentucky food blogger I've met recently online, drew inspiration from both her travels in Southeast Asia and Chef Ouita Mitchell's Windy Corner Market on the outskirts of Lexington, for this Tofu Po'Boy with Barbeque Cole Slaw.

Photo by Fake Food Free

Grumpy Granny, prior Smackdown winner for her entries last summer in Battle Eggplant, embraced the tofu for another entry that proves tofu can be appetizing: Tofu Pizza Italiano Two Ways.

Photo by Grumpy Granny

I'm off to press some tofu (I don't think we'd ever heard of such a thing back in the day) and I'll be back Wednesday with an entry that I promise will not be beige. And it will include vegetables. Boxer will decide the winner (who will be next month's host/judge/theme-picker). There are never any losers here at the Culinary Smackdown. And we manage to do it without anarchy.

January Culinary Smackdown Reminder

Scout and I have spent a quiet weekend reflecting on 2011 and looking forward to 2012. At least I have. Who knows what's going on his kitty brain as he snoozes on my lap? I'm just glad he's back home with me.

My calendar is already filling up with 2012 events and adventures to look forward to. The first on my eggy dance card is the January Culinary Smackdown hosted by Anonymous Boxer. Details at her place here.

After her win, Boxer elected to make our January challenge Battle Tofu. Some may turn their noses up at tofu, but I am having fun researching recipes, and have the first of many 2012 field trips in mind. If you're up for eating lighter now that the holidays have passed, here's a nice tofu primer from blogger Call Me Old Fashioned, where I found the photo at the top of this post.

The deadline for this month's Smackdown is Wednesday, January 18, 2012. This friendly little blogging contest is a great way to stretch yourself to try cooking something new, and I'm always inspired by what everyone else comes up with. Whether you've participated before or are ready to tackle something new, ALL are welcome to join in the fun. The Smackdown winner receives bragging rights and gets to serve as host, judge, and "theme picker" for the next month's contest. Plus you can snag a Chickory-designed CS badge for your blog. If tofu isn't your thing but you'd like to join in another month, you can always find updates on my sidebar by clicking the image under "Where in the World is the Next Culinary Smackdown?"

Wishing you all a tasty 2012 filled with new beginnings, and happiness and success in whatever ways you define those terms for yourself.

xoxo, eggy

UPDATE: Next Culinary Smackdown Announced!

The deadline isn't until January 15, 2012 January 18, 2012 (Boxer decided to change the date), but Boxer, the reigning winner in our friendly little round-robin virtual cooking competition (for her Butternut Squash Cupcakes with Walnuts and Candied Apricot) has announced the theme of the next Smackdown!

And what is this crafty vegetarian from the Pacific Northwest challenging us with? Battle Tofu! Click here for all the details straight from Boxer herself. It's been great to have some new folks join in the fun lately, and remember that ALL are welcome. Boxer is even planning a prize (handmade, I'm guessing) for whoever takes the top spot at making tofu both look and taste good.

Boxer has been a big supporter of the the Culinary Smackdown, even playing along when I revived our friendly little monthly blogging/cooking contest for Battle Eggplant, an ingredient it turns out she was allergic to. The Smackdown is all about stretching yourself to try something new, so keep January's contest in the back of your mind as you go through your busy holiday season. After the new year rolls around, a new challenge and a bit of whimsy might just be in order.

Speaking of handmade, blogger friend Chickory is hosting a Handmade Holiday at her art studio in Blue Ridge, Georgia this Sunday and I hear some of her offerings will be available online too. ETA: Here's Chicky's website.

Wherever you are, please support handmade and local this holiday season!