WAGASHI japanese Confectionery

WITH CANDY, as with so much in modern Japan, Western exists side by side with Japanese.

Although it is as distinctively Japanese as the word wagashi would suggest, Japanese sweets are the product of a variety of foreign influences. First in the Nara period, as trade with China

began to flourish, superior Chinese sweets greatly influenced the Japanese version. At the

same time, tea, and sugar were introduced to Japan; but sugar remained a rare commodity

that only the court and social elite could afford. In Europe, too, sugar was for a long time a

rare item, sold as a drug in apothecaries where it sometimes was mixed with bitter ingredients

to disguise their taste. Large quantities of sugar were not found in Europe until after the discovery of sugar cane in New World. In Japan, with the influence of Zen and the tea ceremony, confections of superior taste and form were developed, notably in Kyoto. But it was not until the Edo period that confectionery in its modern form became popular among Japanese.

            In the mid-sixteenth century, European missionaries brought Western confectionery to Japan and showed the Japanese entirely new ways to use flour, sugar, and eggs in cakes and biscuits. After Japan closed its doors to foreigners these techniques took on a somewhat Japanese character; but products of that time, such as Nagasaki sponge cake (kasutera), which is Spanish in origin, are still popular today. With the reopening of Japan to the West, some enterprising Japanese began producing Western confectionery in quantity, but with only limited

success. To Japanese who were used to rice crackers and bean jam, Western candy was too

rich and sweet smelling. Westerners consider milk, eggs, nuts, marshmallows, vanilla, and

chocolate the proper ingredients for confectionery. Thus for most non-Japanese, it is not

a mouth-watering experience to find such items as rice, beans, potatoes, leaves, and seaweed

gelatin in what has been offered as "sweets."

            Japanese confections are classified according to the way they are made and according to their ingredients. A major distinction is made between confectionery with a high water content ( namagashi) and dry confectionery (higashi). One example of higashi is senbei, or

rice crackers-although the labeling of shrimpor seaweed-flavored rice crackers as a "sweet"

comes as a surprise to Westerners. Awaokoshi, made with millet, is another dry confection.

Some foreigners who taste it might think they are munching on birdseed, although awaokoshi

is similar to American health-food candy bars made from sesame seeds and honey.

            Namagashi consists of such confections as yokan, a sweet bean jelly that resembles the

inside of a Western jellybean; mushimono (steamed confections) like the sweet, gummy

uiro candy; and manju, buns with bean-paste filling. Mochigashi is another kind of namagashi

and is so named because one of its ingredients is rice cake. In addition to all these, it is possible

to find sweets like anpan that combine traditional Japanese with imported Western

ingredients and techniques.

            Foreigners are sometimes surprised to see how often Japanese give each other gifts of

candy. In the West, too, of course, cookies and chocolates are given as gifts; but more often

candy is bought simply to satisfy one's own sweet tooth. In this respect, Japan probably is

becoming Westernized. Japanese wagashi meanwhile seems to be more and more a treat for

older people or a gift for special occasions.