After all the hubbub around last month’s Bacon Takedown, we were hot to see what cheftestants would pile into the chafing dishes for yesterday’s Tofu Takedown, the latest of Matt Timms’s publicly judged home-baked competitions. In the five years that he’s been encouraging New Yorkers to bring it for the Chili Takedown (which the Feed had the honor of judging)—and similar contests for cookies, salsa, and next month, curry—this was the first devoted to a vegetarian theme. Ironically, the ready throngs of eater-judges stood in line for the event beneath a looming Western Beef sign on the market next to the Highline Ballroom, which had been turned into an improbable showcase for soy yesterday afternoon.
Once inside, the Feed piled our plate with samples from the seventeen different teams and sat down to dig in. A bevy of desserts—two tiramisus, chocolate-covered pretzel pie, several gelati and a green tea brûlée among them—gave the few savory entries an immediate leg up. With our ballot in mind, we tasted for dishes that celebrated the naturally light flavor of tofu and its versatile texture, rather than those that tried to make it simply a “meat alternative.” Without a doubt, the General Tso’s tofu and the homemade tofu gelato (made from homemade soy milk and served on a paper-thin candied tofu cookie) won in our book for best exhibition of the main ingredient.
Celebrity judges Cathy Erway and Akiko Moorman (Hapa Kitchen) gave a nod to Mr. T’s Tiramisu (“T’s are for tofu, too!” chimed the chef) for its fluffy texture and a “best presentation” award to the tofu truffles, but it was the Ethiopian empanadas that walked away with the people’s-choice first-place prize. Sara Morrisson, who enlisted a team of friends to help pinch the pockets of her award-winning creation, was inspired by a vegetarian version of doro wat, an Ethiopian chicken stew, that she made for a dinner party years ago. The tofu filling benefitted from beri beri, a mixture of more than twenty spices, which brought subtle heat to the bite-size fusion finger food. Unfortunately, we sensed that the crowd lacked a certain carnal energy, and many left before the judges announced the winners. Perhaps they would have stuck around were there “facon” on hand.—Jeanne Hodesh
