Kuro-goma dofu

It looks sort of awful, but it tastes wonderful.

Dofu is a variant of tofu, but this tofu isn't made from soy beans, it's made from sesame seeds (usually white ones, but in this case, black) with a little starch. The glob on top that looks like a spoiled egg yolk is sweetened miso.

You can buy goma-dofu (胡麻豆腐 sesame tofu) in any supermarket here in Japan, but my first memory of it is the best. I was staying, for the first time of many, at a temple at Koyasan, the headquarters of Shingon Buddhism, not far from Kyoto. The temples of Koyasan are famous for their shojin ryori (temple cooking) and I certainly wasn't disappointed, except by the quantity. Everything was presented in very small servings and I was very glad that there was a mini-grocery story almost next door, where I could buy peanuts, and a bakery down the street where I could really fill up after meals.

The menu changed from day to day, but every other day, at dinner, one of the dishes was sure to be a sort of creamy, rich, incredibly delicious tofu I'd never seen before. It was, I learned, goma dofu, a specialty of Koyasan.

Years later, the national broadcaster served up a TV drama about a girl who learns proper behavior from her aunt, who was the abbess of a temple. The aunt taught her to make goma dofu, which was more an exercise in concentration and dedication to perfection than simply a recipe. It seemed, from watching the show, that the girl spent hours a day making a few small servings of goma dofu. Actually, I've read that it only takes an hour to grind the sesame seeds by hand and, of course, it you want to take a shortcut, you can use a grinder or, I suppose, buy tahini and save most of the time and effort. But then you're not getting your behavioral training.