拍攝美國最古老的豆腐店之一

拍攝美國最古老的豆腐店之一

Growing up in Portland, Ore., in the '90s, tofu could be hard to find. It would be a long time before ramen joints spread across the city, before national chains like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods had their own store-brand tofu.

上世紀90年代，我在俄勒岡州波特蘭長大，豆腐可能很難找到。在拉面店遍布全城之前，像喬的店和全食超市這樣的全國性連鎖店還沒有自己的自有品牌豆腐，這樣的日子還很長。

But like soba noodles, nori, rice and fish, tofu is a staple of Japanese home cooking. So my parents regularly made a 15-minute drive west, across the Willamette River, to stock up at Ota Tofu.

但和蕎麥面、紫菜、米飯和魚一樣，豆腐是日本家庭烹飪的主食。因此，我的父母經(jīng)常驅(qū)車15分鐘，穿過威拉米特河，到太田豆腐商店買東西。

The old-school company still makes its tofu by hand in small batches, navigating a growing demand for plant-based foods. But what I didn't realize then is that it's also a cultural institution — the oldest tofu producer still operating in the country, Ota Tofu has fed Portland's Japanese American community for more than 100 years. Eileen Ota, a former owner of Ota Tofu, notes that other tofu producers existed earlier in the United States, but many ceased operations because of one event: the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

這家老派公司仍然小批量手工制作豆腐，以滿足人們對植物性食品日益增長的需求。但我當時沒有意識到的是，它也是一個文化機構(gòu)——美國歷史最悠久的豆腐生產(chǎn)商，太田豆腐在波特蘭的日裔美國人社區(qū)已經(jīng)有100多年的歷史了。曾是太田豆腐公司老板的艾琳·太田指出，美國早前就有其他豆腐生產(chǎn)商，但很多都因為一件事而停業(yè):二戰(zhàn)期間日裔美國人遭到拘禁。

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's executive order gave an estimated 120.000 Japanese Americans only a few days to pack up their belongings for indefinite incarceration. That forced many small-business owners to liquidate their inventory and equipment, and farmers had to sell their land for fractions of its worth. The economic losses at the time were between $1 billion and $3 billion ($16 billion to $47 billion in today's dollars), according to Densho, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the history of the internment.

富蘭克林·D·羅斯?？偨y(tǒng)的行政命令要求大約12萬名日裔美國人在幾天內(nèi)收拾行李，接受無限期監(jiān)禁。這迫使許多小企業(yè)主變賣他們的存貨和設(shè)備，農(nóng)民不得不以其價值的一小部分出售他們的土地。根據(jù)致力于保存拘留歷史的非營利組織Densho的數(shù)據(jù)，當時的經(jīng)濟損失在10億到30億美元之間(相當于今天的160億到470億美元)。

Shina and Saizo Ohta, the co-owners of Ota Tofu at the time (Ohta is the original English spelling of the family name), were forced to leave Portland for the Minidoka Relocation Center in Idaho. They left their shop without any guarantee they would be able reopen it.

矢那和齊三·太田是當時太田豆腐(Ohta是奧塔家族名字的英文拼寫)的共同所有者，他們被迫離開波特蘭前往愛達荷州的Minidoka搬遷中心。他們在沒有任何保證的情況下離開了他們的商店，他們將能夠重新開張。

Saizo Ohta, who was 61 when they left, died at Minidoka, according to Eileen Ota, who brought a thick binder of historical documents and printed emails when we met for coffee.

據(jù)艾琳·太田說，他們離開時61歲的齊三·太田在米尼多卡去世。我們見面喝咖啡時，她帶來了厚厚的歷史文件活頁夾，并打印了電子郵件。

When the landlord of the shop heard about Saizo's death, she decided to keep their equipment and property for Shina, Saizo's wife. When she returned, she reopened the shop on her own, and it stayed in the family until Eileen Ota sold it in February. I've probably eaten more tofu than any other protein, but I didn't know anything about how tofu was made. So on a predictably rainy morning in October, I came in to photograph the manufacturing process.

商店的老板聽說了齊三的死訊，她決定把他們的設(shè)備和財產(chǎn)留給齊三的妻子矢那。當她回來后，她自己重新開了這家店，它一直留在家里，直到艾琳·太田在2月份賣掉它。我吃的豆腐可能比其他任何蛋白質(zhì)都多，但我對豆腐是怎么做的一無所知。因此，在10月一個預報的雨天早晨，我進來拍攝了生產(chǎn)過程。

Steam wafted through the production room, and it smelled like soy milk and oil from making agedashi tofu, which is sliced thin and fried in-house.

蒸汽從生產(chǎn)車間飄過，聞起來像豆?jié){和油，這是制作日式炸豆腐的味道。日式炸豆腐被切成薄片，在室內(nèi)炸。

Regulars lined up at a cluttered counter near the front door to pick up a block or two of fresh tofu wrapped in plastic bags. One customer brought his own Tupperware.

?？蛡冊谇伴T附近一個雜亂的柜臺前排起長隊，拿起一兩塊用塑料袋包裹的新鮮豆腐。一位顧客帶來了自己的特百惠。

Ko Ota, the only direct descendant of Shina and Saizo Ohta at the shop, comes in at 3 a.m. every day to oversee the cooking process. Ota Tofu's handmade product has become something of a rarity as demand for tofu has increased in the past decade — higher demand requires more output, so many manufacturers have switched to a fully automated process. "Our competitors essentially just push buttons," said Jason Ogata, the new owner of the company.

幸子太田是矢那和齊三太田在商店里唯一的直系后裔，凌晨3點進來。幸子太田每天監(jiān)督烹飪過程。太田豆腐的手工產(chǎn)品在過去十年里已經(jīng)成為一種罕見的產(chǎn)品，因為對豆腐的需求有所增加-更高的需求需要更多的產(chǎn)量，因此許多制造商已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)向完全自動化的工藝。“我們的競爭對手基本上只是按下按鈕，”該公司的新老板詹森奧加塔說。