Sweets
Ehime Taruto
Ehime Taruto — a castella roll cake filled with yuzu-scented red bean paste
A Matsuyama specialty: a castella sponge rolled around sweet red bean paste. A domain lord is said to have brought the recipe home after encountering a Portuguese-style confection in Nagasaki, then reworked it with yuzu citrus in the filling — a nod to the region's oranges — leaving a spiral pattern in cross-section.
- Origin: Ehime Matsuyama
- About 670 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
As the sponge cake is rolled up, a spiral of sweet bean paste appears in cross-section, and the scent of yuzu is said to rise gently. This confection, a signature sweet of Matsuyama, is said to have been transformed when yuzu, a citrus grown across Shikoku, replaced the jam in an imported Western-style rolled cake, taking on a distinctly Japanese character. In 1647, the story goes, the Matsuyama domain's lord traveled to Nagasaki on news of a Portuguese ship's arrival, encountered the cake there, and brought its recipe home.
How it's made
It is mostly a confection people buy rather than bake at home. The filling combines yuzu and red bean, and the defining feature is said to be a cross-section that spirals like the Japanese character no. Some shops fold in cherry blossom, summer mandarin, or chestnut depending on the season, said to let the cake be enjoyed differently through the year. It is sliced and served with tea, and it is also a common choice as a gift.
Why it took this shape
The recipe is said to have been kept as a family tradition within the Hisamatsu clan for generations before spreading to confectioners in Matsuyama from the Meiji era onward. Its name is said to trace either to a Dutch word for cake or a Portuguese word for a rolled cake, both said to descend from a Latin word for baked pastry. Choosing yuzu over jam, reflecting a region known for its citrus, is said to be what turned this cake into a distinctly Matsuyama blend of Western and Japanese taste.
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
Also from Ehime
- Bote ChaRoasted tea is whisked to a froth with a salted bamboo whisk and poured over black-bean rice with toppings like bamboo shoot — a dish from Matsuyama. Said to have been devised by a domain lord's household during a period of enforced frugality, it's still served at a temple's springtime Buddha festival.
- EbitenSmall shrimp are ground shell and all, worked with white fish and tofu, and fried into a cake — a fish-paste product from eastern Ehime. The salt is kept light to let the tofu's sweetness and the shrimp's aroma come through, with the ground shell left in for a gritty bite.
- Igisu DofuIgisu seaweed and raw soybean flour are simmered into stock and chilled firm like agar, a dish from Imabari. Its cool texture is meant to coax back a summer appetite, and households differ over whether to fold in shrimp or leave it plain.
- SatsumaGrilled fish is flaked and worked into barley miso, thinned with a stock from its own bones, and ladled over hot barley rice — a dish of southern Ehime. Said to have started as a fisherman's trick for making dry barley rice easier to eat, with the fish varying by area and household.
- Tai SomenA whole sea bream is simmered and set on a large platter of boiled somen noodles, the cooking broth doubling as a dipping sauce. The noodles are linked to the Tanabata weaver-star legend and the fish to good fortune, and the dish has long been served to family at weddings and milestone birthdays.
- TaimeshiEastern Ehime cooks a whole sea bream into the rice pot; the south instead lays raw fillets marinated in egg and soy over hot rice. Considered an auspicious fish, it appears at celebrations too, and which style a household follows tends to run by region.