A Plant-Based Charcuterie Board, Built on Tofu
A Lyon deli is curing pressed tofu with the same techniques used for saucisson — and the texture is closer than you'd expect.
Curing meat and curing tofu have almost nothing in common chemically. That hasn't stopped a small deli in Lyon's Croix-Rousse district from trying to bridge the two anyway.
Their approach presses tofu hard, seasons it with a dry cure adapted from saucisson sec recipes, and ages it in a climate-controlled cave for three weeks. The result won't fool anyone into thinking it's meat — but as its own thing, sliced thin on a board with cornichons and mustard, it holds up.
Worth seeking out if you're in the area and curious what happens when a technique gets borrowed rather than imitated.