Sweets
Decchi Yokan
Decchi yokan — a thin, watery winter yokan cut from a shallow tray
Sweet red bean paste is set with agar, sugar, and a pinch of salt into a thin, water-yokan-like winter confection. It is said to have begun when a young apprentice, home for New Year from a Kyoto shop, stretched a bar of yokan with water to share with neighbors, eaten by the kotatsu.
- Origin: Fukui
- About 320 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
A thin, soft water-yokan made from smooth red bean paste, agar, and sugar, so it slips down smoothly and carries a restrained sweetness that never overstays its welcome. Eaten in winter rather than summer, curled up under a heated kotatsu table, is said to be the Fukui way, scooped straight from its box with the wooden spatula that comes with it.
How it's made
Smooth red bean paste is dissolved together with water, sugar, and agar, then poured into a flat paper or wooden box to set as it cools. About two centimeters thick, it's typically sold in an A4-sized flat box with cut lines scored into the surface. Scooping along those lines with the included wooden spatula is said to be the old-fashioned way to eat it.
Why it took this shape
Using less red bean and sugar than an ordinary yokan is said to have made this a treat suited to winter, since a lower sugar content keeps it from spoiling in the cold. One account traces it to an apprentice who, sent to work in Kyoto, brought yokan home at New Year's and thinned it with water to share around — said to be how it settled in as an easy, everyday winter treat.
Before you go
- How to shop in a depachika (department store food hall)A guide to browsing prepared foods and bento, choosing wagashi as a gift with a good shelf life, sampling etiquette, end-of-day discounts, asking for cold packs and wrapping, and finding your way around a depachika floor.
- At kissaten, cafes, and kanmi-dokoroThe difference between jun-kissa and chain cafes, the morning-set custom, and kanmi-dokoro staples like anmitsu and zenzai.
Dishes in the same style
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- Iga ManjuSweet bean paste is wrapped in rice flour dough, then coated with dyed sticky rice grains. One account ties the name to the grains' resemblance to a chestnut's spiny husk, and in the western Mikawa region it's said to be offered to Hina dolls at the Doll Festival.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Contrast
- Tobitsuki DangoA dough of glutinous and non-glutinous rice flour is boiled and coated with cowpea beans soaked in sugar water — an Obon sweet from around Awara city. The name is said to come from the pale red beans looking as if they had 'jumped onto' the mochi, its sweetness kept modest.
- Decchi YokanA simple steamed yokan made by mixing sweet azuki paste with flour and wrapping it in bamboo sheath. Landlocked Omi had little access to agar, so flour was used as a binder instead, giving the confection its chewy texture and faint bamboo aroma.
- Decchi YokanSweet red bean paste is set with thread agar from the Hokusetsu area into a lightly sugared yokan. One theory ties its name to an apprentice, or decchi, not fully 'boiled down' like proper neri-yokan; another says apprentices carried it home as a gift. It is said to be made only in winter.
Also from Fukui
- Atsuage no NitaThick fried tofu, blanched and scored with a cross cut, is simmered sweet-savory in dashi, soy sauce, and mirin with a dash of ginger juice. Fukui leads the country in fried-tofu consumption, and this dish is said to have moved from a Honkoko feast dish into everyday cooking.
- BokkakeThick fried tofu, burdock, and shirataki noodles are simmered in a bonito broth and poured hot, broth and all, over freshly cooked rice — eaten for over a century since the early 1910s. In Katsuyama it is said to take a chazuke-like turn, topped with fish cake and mitsuba.
- ChameshiRoasted soybeans are steeped in hot roasted barley tea, and rice is then cooked in that same tea — a dish from the old post town of Imajo, said to descend from Nara's 'nara-chameshi'. It is said to be indispensable at memorial services, Honkoko, and for daughters visiting home.
- Choju NamasuGround sesame is worked into a paste with miso, thick fried tofu, mustard, and vinegar, then tossed with shredded daikon, carrot, and snap peas — a New Year salad whose name literally wishes long life, also said to appear at memorial services and Honkoko.
- Echizen Oroshi SobaA cold soba from Echizen, Fukui, topped with grated daikon and bonito flakes. It is said to originate with a soba maker a local lord brought from Kyoto to promote buckwheat as an emergency food crop.
- Fu no Karashi-aeRehydrated wheat gluten and salted cucumber are dressed with local mustard, miso, and vinegar — a shojin dish for Honkoko. Fukui's mustard is milled whole without degreasing for a sharper aroma, and gluten from Echizen, tinted red in part, adds color, it is said.