Yubeshi

This is a package of yubeshi, one of my favourite types of wagashi (Japanese sweets). Yubeshi actually comes in many forms, all of which seemingly have little in common beyond the use of rice flour and soy sauce, with several areas in northern Japan claiming a different type as its own. The kind I like is a mochi-like square flavoured with sugar and soy sauce, covered with walnuts and dusted with a mysterious substance called oburato. It comes from Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures.

This yubeshi was bought at a local supermarket and comes from Iwate. This is the first time I've bought it that way: I've mostly had it given to me as a souvenir from people who've traveled up north. I received it very occasionally for years, always really liking it and wanting to go buy more but never being able to remember what it was called. So I was never able to find it for myself until last year when I actually had a student who'd given me some earlier write down the name for me. I sent my husband on a mission to find some, and when he mentioned it at work half of his coworkers claimed it was the meibutsu (famous product) of their hometowns. They helped him locate some at a department store, and when he brought it home I knew I'd finally found the elusive treat I'd been looking for.

Top quality yubeshi from a good wagashiya (Japanese sweet shop) is a special thing. It has a slightly chewy texture, softer than mochi but elastic enough to give it good bite. The addition of soy sauce to a dessert seems odd at first, and indeed I've tried a few that were too heavy on the soy sauce and and didn't taste very nice, but restrained use of soy sauce is quite nice and goes with the walnuts well. Most yubeshi is just sweet enough to qualify as a dessert, but not overly sugary the way some Japanese sweets can be.

The sparkly stuff seen above is the oburato, a starchy substance used to encase medicine and wrap sticky sweets. It is most often found in small very thin sheets or tiny baggies, in which powdered medicine is poured before the baggie is sealed and swallowed whole (medicine is still commonly dispensed in powdered from in Japan, and wrapping it in oburato prevents you from having to taste it). A few kinds of wagashi are wrapped in these sheets or sprinkled with a flaked form of oburato; in either case the oburato is completely edible and won't affect the flavour of the food it encases as it has no taste of its own. It is a nice alternative to the powdered sugar used in the west or the rice flour more commonly used in Japan, because it doesn't make a mess and adds a pretty sparkle to whatever it's used on.

Unfortunately, this yubeshi wasn't great. It seems that the supermarket is not the place to buy it, so I'll have to wait until my next visit to a department store (or the next time a student makes a trip to northern Japan).

Comments

[baboo]

Yo B. Morocco,

The pic of the fallen imagawayaki doesn't actually look all that bad. The one of the two ants standing faithfully beside their hole and looking all confused with their little antennae messaging "what-the-hell was that??" was much more distressing.

The truth: didn't you just wipe that grassy, dog-hairy chunk of fallen imagawayaki on a stick and eat it??

What exactly is oburato made of?
Baboo

[Amy]

Hey Baboo,
Oburato is made of starch (most likely potato starch) and kanten (agar agar). It was introduced to Japan from Holland ages ago, along with western medicine in general. From what I can gather the name comes from the Dutch "oblaat", which means (or meant at that time) the wafers served as the body of Christ. Perhaps they were once made out of the same thing? Really interesting stuff, Hideaki's Dad uses little sheets of it several times a day to take his medicine.

As for the imagawayaki, that's exactly what I did, how did you know??

[baboo]

Thanks for the oburato info. It makes sense- the Communion wafers (a.k.a. the "Eucharist") in the Catholic Mass are white circular discs made from bland starch of some kind, and the agar agar was possibly added to give it tensile strength and maybe a bit of taste. I think the word "Oblate" as it applies to various Christian religious orders in Russia, Italy, France, etc (Oblate Orders) is derived from the same root as the Dutch "oblaat".

I knew about the imagawayaki because genes don't lie, and that's what I'd have done.

Babs.

[Amy]

Genes may not lie, Baboo, but they improve: I doubt you'd even bother to brush off the grass and dog hairs. The fact that I did is proof of evolution.