Enlarge By Martin E. Klimek for USA TODAY Their tofu is not "that white lump you tried to eat in 1986": Hodo Soy Beanery CEO John Scharffenberger, left, and founder Minh Tsai make small batches of the soybean custard that the Japanese prize but Americans avoid for now. OAKLAND  If anyone can get Americans to eat tofu, it's John Scharffenberger. In the 1980s, the serial foodie made American-produced sparkling wines hot (under the Scharffenberger Cellars name) at a time when everyone knew Champagne came from France. Then in the 1990s, he got people buying gourmet chocolate rectangles (under the brand Scharffen Berger ) when everyone knew Americans only ate cheap candy bars. PHOTOS: That tofu voodoo that Hodo does so well Now Scharffenberger, 59, has embarked on perhaps his most uphill battle of all — making tofu a luxury gourmet item. He has become CEO of Hodo Soy Beanery, a company that turns dried soybeans into the exquisite custard the Japanese prize but many Americans avoid like the plague. "He's gone from two of the sexiest foods, Champagne and chocolate, and he obviously thinks this can be sexy," says Olivia Wu, a food writer and chef at Google who has Hodo products in her cafe. Same challenge as yogurt It might be an uphill battle. Tofu has the same problem today that yogurt had 30 years ago, says Brian Wansink, author of the book Marketing Nutrition. It may be healthful and beloved by millions in other parts of the world, but "we don't know how to prepare it, we don't know what to put with it," says the Cornell professor and expert on eating behavior. "No one says, 'Aha — it's tofu time!' " Yogurt found its place in the American diet when it went from a gloppy, unfamiliar health food to an easy-to-eat snack. Once tofu undergoes that transformation, gets sleek packaging and comes not in a raw "what the heck do I do with this?" block but an easy-to-use prepared food, it will find its place, he believes. That's exactly what Scharffenberger and Hodo are working on. Forget the jiggly white block from college. Imagine a braised puff marinated in a tangy five-spice sauce, "chewy on the outside and creamy in the middle," that you pop into a salad or casserole, he says. It was the Hodo flavor that grabbed Annie Somerville, executive chef at Greens, a storied vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco. "It tastes good, as opposed to tasting like nothing," she says. The company had a unique story even before Scharffenberger arrived. Founder Minh Tsai, 39, studied economics at Columbia University in New York and was in financial consulting back in 2004 when he realized he couldn't find any tofu that lived up to what he tasted at the local tofu shack with his grandfather in Vietnam. So to the distress of his family, he gave up his career and embarked on a quest to make fresh, artisanal, organic tofu. Tsai brought in some cousins and his brother-in-law to work nights and weekends. They called the company Hodo, for the Mandarin words hao, meaning good or noble, and do from dofu, tofu. Last year they built a plant in Oakland with Taiwanese equipment. Using soybeans from an Illinois organic farm and no preservatives, Tsai's staff of 12 makes small batches of tofu eight hours a day. The East Coast will have to wait The company offers tours to help demystify tofu. On one recent Wednesday, Jun-yi Wu, 71, of Rockville, Md., was sampling an array of dishes made with Hodo products and inspecting the production line. "This is richer than what we get in Maryland," the Taiwanese native said. It was this tofu that food writer Michael Pollan enthused about to Scharffenberger at a dinner party. Scharffenberger ended up on the company's advisory board and in July took over as CEO, giving Tsai time to make more and better tofu. Because of their extreme perishability, Hodo products are available only in Northern California. Hodo plans to ship only within a day's travel: The company is aiming for Portland, Seattle and Vancouver this winter and Los Angeles in the spring. The East Coast will have to wait until Hodo finds a collaborator there. "I don't want people to start eating tofu instead of hamburger. I want them to start adding some of our tofu nuggets to their Caesar salad at lunch," says Scharffenberger. They'll see that tofu is much improved. "Forget that white lump you tried to eat in 1986," he says. This stuff "tastes good, it's good for you and it's easy." Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more