[throwaway2037]

    > It's a cheap food sold as a gourmet item because it's rare.

This statement is _entirely_ dependent upon where you live. If you have lots of East/SouthEast Asian immigrants in your community, it will be a regular commodity in any supermarket -- "ethnic" or not. Lots of readers here live in the Bay Area. A regular block of 300/400g fresh tofu is probably cheap as chips in their local supermarket.

    > Like a lot of _other_ fermented foods.

Are you implying that tofu is a fermented food? It is not. (FYI: In Chinese food culture, there is something called fermented tofu [and even stinky tofu], but that is different than non-fermented tofu.)

[absolutelastone]

I meant "cheap" because it is easy to make from scratch.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+do+I++make+tofu+from+scr...

As for "other fermented foods" your final sentence admits it works as used in my post.