The Goodness of Tempeh,
and a trip down memory lane.
My intention was to tell you everything there is to know about tempeh: that it originated in Indonesia a thousand years ago, that its health benefits are superb, that it is highly nutritious, and so on. But, as they say – the best laid plans of mice and men…
I had found the method of preparing tempeh in a friend’s cookbook, several years ago. The book was published by The Farm, an intentional community in Tennessee that I had heard, but didn’t know much about. Because the recipe I’m sharing here is based on their method, I decided to look up their website to make sure I got it right. The names of The Farm’s founders were familiar to me, Ina May and Stephen Gaskin. I thought that she might be the author of the cookbook, but I was wrong. She is a famous midwife and promotes home births. And the cookbook must be out of print, because the website has no reference to it. However, when I found a video clip about Ina May Gaskin which started with Grace Slick singing Somebody to Love —
the memory gates opened full force. I saw the Jefferson Airplane in London at the Roundhouse, in 1968. They performed together with the Doors. I also saw Pink Floyd, John Mayall, and the fantastic but little known Third Ear Band during my two-week stay in London. The city was the epicenter of everything related to counterculture: music, psychedelics, hippie fashion, anything anti-establishment. I had been a student at the university in Munich, but demonstrations against the war in Vietnam and the “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out” mantra had completely changed my life.
I had never understood how people could silently allow the Nazi atrocities and the Holocaust. I was born in 1946, and when I was old enough to ask questions the generation of my parents wasn’t ready for satisfying answers. “We didn’t know what was going on” was the most common reply, which just wasn’t acceptable. “Why did you let this happen? How could so many people blindly follow a megalomaniac?” Nobody would give an explanation; when we were to study the Nazi time during my last highschool year the teacher got conveniently sick.
On June 2, 1967, students in West-Berlin had called for a demonstration against the visit of the Shah of Iran, seen as a brutal, corrupt dictator and a US puppet. The police reacted with ruthless force, beating protesters until they were left on the ground all bloody, and riding on horses into the crowd. A young student, Benno Ohnesorg, who had never been to a demonstration before, was shot and killed by a police officer who, it turned out much later, was a Stasi (East German Secret Service) informer.
Ohnesorg’s death (perceived as unjust assassination by many) galvanized tens of thousands of students and young people all over West-Germany. I eagerly participated at any demonstration that was being organized in Munich; in part, this was my way of showing my parents’ generation that one did NOT have to silently stand by.1
The other part of my liberation in the 1960s had to do with my bourgeois, middle-class upbringing. My parents were strict and authoritarian, my father was a medical doctor, and throughout my childhood and youth an academic career was the only possible prospect. It never occurred to me that I could become a firefighter, or a hairdresser, or even a photographer. Unacceptable. I would go to university, that’s it. Smoking hash and taking LSD changed everything: I felt like Dorothy when she realized she wasn’t in Kansas any more; suddenly, the world was wide open and full of color.
I didn’t stay with the more hard-core, socialist students who seemed just as authoritarian and narrow-minded as the establishment we rebelled against. Instead, I hung out with the Spaßguerilla faction, using tactics such as provocative irony, civil disobedience, and disruptive actions. Interestingly, this would land you in jail just as fast or even faster than something violent; telling a judge during a trial that he is ugly was enough.
Eventually, I became too discouraged by the constant injustice and cruel violence with which the establishment treated me and fellow protestors. A friend was arrested at a demonstration, and at his trial a police officer testified that he THOUGHT my friend had thrown a stone which shattered a window. My friend was punished with NINE months in prison. Another friend got shot by the police – face against a wall, arms up, unarmed. I knew I couldn’t stay in Germany any more.
My travels to India, Southeast Asia, Japan and finally the US taught me that I had to change myself before I could change the world, and that’s where I am now. Trying to do as little harm to the world as possible. Being vegan is part of this.
Alright, and finally – here is the tempeh recipe:
Ingredients:
1 slab of tempeh (8 oz/227 g)
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce mixed with 2 tablespoons water
A pinch each of smoked paprika and cayenne pepper
2 slices of whole wheat bread
1 tablespoon vegan mayo
1 cup chopped spinach
Cherry tomatoes
Preparation:
Again, I found the way to prepare the tempeh in a cookbook from The Farm.
Cut the slab of tempeh into four rectangles, then divide each rectangle lengthwise, so you’ll have eight thin slabs.
Heat the oil in a frying pan. When it is hot, add the tempeh slabs and fry for a few minutes on each side, until lightly browned. Turn the heat to low.
Add the soy sauce/water mixture to the pan and cover with a lid. Let the tempeh steam for a few minutes, then turn them, cover again, and steam for another 3 - 5 minutes. When the tempeh is done the liquid should have mostly evaporated.
In the meantime, toast two slices of bread (or use four pieces of fresh French bread) and spread with a bit of vegan mayo. Add the cooked tempeh.
Add the fresh or frozen spinach to the pan and quickly deglaze, adding a bit of water if necessary, until the spinach is wilted (or fully heated if you’re using frozen). Don’t overcook.
Add it to your tempeh sandwich, together with some tomatoes and/or chopped lettuce.
Selamat makan! (Bon appétit in Indonesian).
No, I only vaguely remember Frankfort and our house on Sebastian-Rinz-Straße. My parents always remembered Regensburg very fondly. My father was in the diplomatic corps so we moved around a good bit. My wife and I raised our sons in one town in Maryland, better for childhood.
Thanks for that glimpse into that time, very interesting.