{"id":766533,"date":"2026-05-01T19:23:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T19:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/766533\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T19:23:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T19:23:23","slug":"alumnus-george-stiffman-wants-you-to-rethink-tofu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/766533\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumnus George Stiffman wants you to rethink tofu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know there\u2019s a tofu variety that melts like cheese? How about one that bakes up like a pastry crust? George Stiffman<\/a> \u201919 is hoping that soon more Americans will be able to answer \u201cyes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A\u00a0self-described \u201ctofu evangelist,\u201d Stiffman is introducing Americans to tofu varieties they\u2019ve likely never encountered. For this work, he was recently included in the inaugural USC Dornsife 10 to Watch <\/a>list, which highlights outstanding alumni of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.\"10<\/p>\n

Stiffman\u2019s interest in plant-based eating started in high school. Concerns about climate change led himtoditch meat to improve his carbon footprint, but the shift was initially hard. Local vegetarian options and meat-substitutes weren\u2019t all that exciting in his home town of St. Paul, Minnesota. \u201cI found it really difficult to give up my favorite foods,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, Stiffman spent a summer in China studying Mandarin, where he encountered a wide range of plant-based dishes. \u201cYou could go downstairs out of your apartment building for breakfast and find fresh hot tofu pudding or mung bean cakes right there,\u201d he says. \u201cI decided to spend my career learning more about these foods and sharing them back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tofu Apprentice<\/p>\n

With thoughts of starting a restaurant or food business, he enrolled as a USC Marshall School of Business<\/a> student. USC\u2019s big-city location and local Chinese community were a major draw \u2014 as was the sunshine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"PhotoStiffman learned traditional vegetarian Chinese cooking while studying abroad. (Photo: Nate DiDomizio.)<\/p>\n

He eventually switched to an East Asian languages and culture degree<\/a>, to focus on his Mandarin skills. At USC Dornsife, he found his fellow students inspiring and open-minded. \u201cMy classmates were more curious about the world, more exploratory,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While completing his degree, Stiffman embarked on numerous study-abroad programs to China. He studied Fujianese cooking with a Buddhist chef and apprenticed under Luo Zhongda, a fifth-generation tofu master in Guiyang.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The apprenticeship was physically demanding. Workdays started at 1 a.m., with Stiffman helping to heat vast cauldrons of soy milk over wood fires before it was curdled and then pressed into different forms. It was notably more hands-on than the industrial tofu production in the U.S., which produces the bland cubes most Americans are familiar with. \u201cWorking there opened my eyes to how you could make tofu that tastes really, really delicious if you put your heart and soul into it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

To(fu) boldly go \u2026<\/p>\n

After graduation, Stiffman began building a career as tofu\u2019s most devoted hype man. In 2023, he published a cookbook, Broken Cuisine<\/a>, recounting his experiences living, working and eatin<\/p>\n

g in China. He credits writing skills built at USC Dornsife for enabling him to complete the project.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s cooked for celebrities, including actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Chinese filmmaker Feng Xiaogang, and lectured at the Culinary Institute of America. In 2024, he launched Soycery, which began as a pop-up selling barbecued tofu skewers and has since pivoted into a venture working to help institutional dining halls offermore tofu varieties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His timing is good. Tofu is protein-packed, and protein is \u201chaving a moment\u201d <\/a>in Americans diets these days. However, for Stiffman, his work remains centered in his original concern for the environment as well as animals. \u201cTofu has three times lower carbon emissions than chicken and\u00a0 25 times lower emissions than beef,\u201d he says. Plus, it\u2019s a great alternative for those displeased by modern-day animal agriculture.<\/p>\n

Tofu might be an unusual focus for a career, but in an era in which technology is upending traditional career paths, pursuing the unexpected might be the best way forward. \u201cThe jobs themselves are going to rapidly change. Being able to think critically, figuring out where you can fit in or making your own role, that\u2019s going to be really important,\u201d says Stiffman.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you know there\u2019s a tofu variety that melts like cheese? How about one that bakes up like…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":766534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[24370,1582,276,314626,990,2961,224,5337],"class_list":{"0":"post-766533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-alumni","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-east-asian-languages-and-cultures","12":"tag-food","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-losangeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116500955791874286","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}