A few weeks ago, my neighborhood held its annual tanabata festival. It's always a huge ostentatious affair with tons of decorations*, but it is also rather quaint in that it is very neighborly. Half of the appeal is the huge decorations that the merchants make from wireframes and papier mache. The other half is pretty much the food. While quite often most people go for kakigori (like a snow cone only in a cup), wieners, fried chicken, or other types of meat or seafood on sticks, and cucumbers, there are often other more unique foods on offer.
The picture above is of warabimochi, which despite the name is not "mochi" (pounded rice cake) at all since the jelly-like cubes are made with plant starch. The cubes are rolled in kinako (toasted soy flour). Since I'm a great fan of kinako and mochi-like consistency, I wanted to sample this, but I didn't want to buy such a large container of cubes to do so. It can be purchased in markets as well, but I've never seen a very tiny container. This is supposed to be especially popular in summer.
*Many photos of these decorations get used in my 1000 Things About Japan blog.
Take it from a fellow kinako fan: don't wait to find the tiniest container you can--you'll just end up wishing you'd bought a bigger one! See if you can find a small storefront wagashi shop; they abound in Kyoto, but I don't know about Tokyo.
ReplyDeleteMmm, now I've got a bad craving for these bad boys. I think I might have the fixin's to make these as we speak...
I've yet to sample anything with kinako but it looks yummy!
ReplyDeleteThis is one of my favourite Kit Kat flavours!:) I still have some stocked up from my last trip to Japan. And although I generally don't try any Kit Kat flavours with white chocolate as the base(don't like white chocolate for its sweetness), I'm glad I tried this one.
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