A Brief Introduction to Japanese Confectionery

Japan’s historic culture of “wa” or harmony and oneness, is reflected in just about every facet of its culture. Japan’s traditional confectionary art of Wagashi is no exception.

A Brief History

Japan’s ancients, like their foreign counterparts, enjoyed dried fruits and nuts as confectioneries. However, Wagashi did not emerge as an art form until the advent of rice cultivation and processing. The earliest Wagashi were rice based. Made of pounded sticky rice and shaped into balls and dumplings, dango and mochi are still widely popular today. Other ancient dainties, acorn-flour cookies for example, did not stand the test of time and were soon forgotten.

Japan owes much of Wagashi’s early development and evolution to the Chinese. It was during the Asuka period (538-710 AD) that Japanese diplomats brought new confectionary techniques and ingredients back to Japan. Confectioners began to incorporate wheat flour into their sweets, and also started using a sweet syrup derived from the grape ivy. It was not until the Edo period (1603-1868) that sugarcane was used as a sweetner.

Once exchanged by the legendary Samurai for presents and used in Buddhist rites, Wagashi now has a smaller, yet beautiful, purpose in the modern age. Wagashi is served with tea at home, and in certified Sado (tea ceremonies.) Wagashi is the standard gift from visitors and houseguests to their hosts. Each Japanese prefecture has its own famous Wagashi sold at its major station, gift wrapped for tourists to take home to their families.

Characteristics

Ingredients: Traditionally, Wagashi uses only natural plant ingredients. Modern Wagashi sometimes includes milks, butter, or eggs, but the ancients would have frowned this on.

Appearance: Invariably themed on nature, Wagashi is shaped to resemble natural things like leaves, fish, birds, fruit, wind, etc. Both organic and synthetic food colorings tint the confections to appealing, natural looking shades. Sometimes the confection is transparent, as in the case of mizu-yokan (themed on water).

Balance: Wagashi is almost always served with green tea, and seldom alone. Wagashi is eaten with a bamboo pick on intricately painted dishes. It is never served crowded on a large dish, as western confectionaries often are.

A Short Guide to Basic Wagashi

• Mochi: Made of pounded white rice, mochi has a soft, sticky texture. Tinted and filled with sweet bean paste it is called Daifuku. Mochi is served throughout the year, but especially on New Years. There is even an enduring Japanese legend that says there are two rabbits on the moon pounding mochi in an earthen bowl.

• Dango: Dango are small rice balls similar to mochi, except in that they are made with rice flour instead of whole pounded rice. They are served skewered on a stick and dusted with sweetened kinako (soybean flour with a nutty flavor), or coated with sweet bean paste.

• Manju: A small cake made of wheat or yam powder containing white or red bean paste. Manju is often decorated very beautifully and is one of the most popular Wagashi for gift giving.

• Kakigori: Shaved ice with fruit flavored syrup. Kakigori is commonly vended on the street or at festivals throughout the hot summer months. The flavors are typically strawberry, lemon, melon, and milk. The ancients, obviously without access to the aforementioned flavors, had to make do with a sweet plant generated sap known as amazura-sen.

• Warabi-mochi: These soft little transparent balls of tapioca starch are dusted with pale sweetened soybean flour or drizzled with brown sugar syrup and served icy cold in the summer months. A vendor in a truck will travel through the towns crooning “waaarabi mochi” in a very nasal voice, which I find disturbing.

• Yokan: One of the oldest Wagashi still in existence, yokan is a block of sweet bean paste bound with a gelatinous agent known as agar. It is eaten sliced like a terrine. Mizu-yokan is transparent, and often contains the colorful forms of flowers, pine trees, or ancient demon ogres.

• Castella: A western-style sponge cake that came to Japan with the Portuguese in the 1500s. It is often flavored with matcha, which is powdered green tea.

• Tai-yaki: A fish shaped waffle containing bean paste or custard. This, along with the preceding castella, could be considered a more modern Wagashi, as they both contain wheat and eggs.