🍱 Gomadoufu(Sesame tofu)

“Sesame tofu” is said to have originated as one of the vegetarian Buddhist dishes eaten by monks practicing austere asceticism at Mount Koya, a temple settlement founded by Kobo Daishi (Kukai) roughly 1,200 years ago. Sesame is an extremely nutritious food that was once considered to be a valuable medicine in China. It is said that Kobo Daishi, who traveled to China as an envoy to the Tang Dynasty, brought sesame back to Mount Koya and began cultivating it in Japan. Buddhist cuisine, which does not include meat or fish, tends to lack protein, and as a result, it is believed that people adhering to a diet consisting of Buddhist cuisine supplemented their diet by eating sesame, which contains high quality protein. Sesame tofu was later conceived as an efficient way of consuming the nutrients contained in sesame. The skin is removed from raw sesame seeds without roasting and mixed with Yoshino arrowroot and water from Mount Koya. The mixture is then ground with a mortar and pestle and cooked. There is also an alternative theory that sesame tofu has its origins in “ma tofu”, a dish described in “Japanese and Chinese Buddhist Cuisine” published in 1697. During the Showa period, sesame tofu gained widespread recognition as a Mount Koya specialty, and today it is one of the staple dishes of Japanese cuisine.