Benjamin Franklin (American scholar) was the first American to speak of tofu and, more precisely, he mentioned it in a letter addressed to John Bartram (botanist and his compatriot) as far back as 1770. Franklin discovered tofu, as well as other products made from soybeans (commonly called Chinese cheeses) during a trip to London, a city in which the Chinese community was quite widespread.
The first tofu production company was established in the United States in 1878.
In 1908, Li Yuying, a Chinese and vegetarian anarchist with a French degree in agriculture and biology, opened a soy processing plant: "Usine de la Caseo-Sojaïne". This was the first pseudo-soy dairy in the world, as well as the first French bean-meal production and sales factory.
At the time, tofu was not yet well known to Westerners, who began to know the product in the mid-1900s.
Thanks to the greater cultural intertwining between the West and East Asia, as well as the growing interest in vegetarianism, the knowledge of tofu then spread visibly.
Today, many types of flavored tofu can be found in most Western super markets.
In addition to the Orientals, tofu is widely used by vegans and vegetarians as a high biological value protein source to replace foods of animal origin.
