Sweets
Getanha
Getanha — a triangular black-sugar cake, its surface dipped glossy in syrup
A wheat-and-soda dough baked with black sugar, cut into triangles, and dipped glossy in black-sugar syrup. It's said to have begun as a teatime treat for visitors to Yokogawa, once a rice-collection town, its name likening the shape to a mud-caked wooden clog's teeth.
- Origin: Kagoshima Kirishima
- About 940 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
A batter of wheat flour and baking soda mixed with brown sugar is baked, cut into isosceles triangles, and dipped in brown sugar syrup for this Kagoshima confection. The syrup on the surface stays pleasantly crisp, while the firm cake underneath slowly soaks up more of the syrup as time passes. Its name, said to come from its resemblance to the mud-caked teeth of a wooden geta sandal, gives it a certain rustic charm.
How it's made
Wheat flour and baking soda are combined with brown sugar dissolved in water, spread on a baking sheet, and baked for about 20 minutes. Once cooled slightly, it is cut into isosceles triangles and dipped in brown sugar syrup before eating. Keeping the syrup coating moist rather than letting it dry out is said to be the key, and the thickness of the baking sheet can also affect how firm the finished cake turns out.
Why it took this shape
The confection is said to have started as a teatime treat served to travelers gathering in Yokogawa, a former rice-collection town now part of Kirishima, once also known as a "triangle sweet." Against the backdrop of the Satsuma domain's monopoly on brown sugar production in Ryukyu and Amami, it is said to have spread as a local sweet built around that same brown sugar, and after falling out of production in Yokogawa for some years, it was reportedly revived in the 2000s by local dietary improvement volunteers.
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 Kagoshima
- Abura ZomenPork and somen are fried together with a splash of broth, the oil and stock emulsifying into a silky coat on the noodles. Just how somen took root in wheat-free Amami isn't clear, but the dish is a fixture whenever people gather, not least for the August Dance festival.
- AkumakiMochi rice steeped in wood-ash lye is wrapped in bamboo sheath and boiled for hours in more lye water — a Boys' Festival sweet said to have fed Saigo Takamori's troops in the field. The lye's alkalinity holds bacteria back, letting it keep for days in Kagoshima's heat and humidity.
- Amami Kokuto-jochuKokuto-jochu permitted to be made only in the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture. It's said to carry a sweet aroma distinctive to islands where sugarcane cultivation thrives, and around 30 breweries are said to compete on character while observing the liquor tax law's condition that rice koji be used.
- Buta Hone YasaiBone-in pork cut into big chunks is simmered in a large pot with tsuwabuki, daikon, and koshaman taro — an Amami dish essential to New Year's Eve, also called wanfineyasse. It's regarded as a wisdom born of using every part of the island's own black pigs.
- Buta JiruPork simmered with daikon, taro, and other roots in a miso broth, built on Kagoshima's own pork — the prefecture raises more hogs than any other — paired with a barley miso high in koji and correspondingly sweet. A warming bowl for winter, common at home and in school lunches alike.
- Buta MisoBoiled pork is pounded together with miso and sugar into a keeping paste, with peanuts and bonito flakes added in Amami versions. It's said to have grown out of the need to use every part of the one pig a household slaughtered each year, alongside salting and other preserved forms.