Sweets
Imo Youkan
Imo Youkan — sweet potato paste set like yokan
Steamed sweet potato is mashed and worked with sugar into a paste set like yokan — said to have been devised in the Meiji era by an Asakusa potato wholesaler and a confectioner as an affordable stand-in for the pricier bean-paste yokan of the day.
- Origin: Tokyo Taito
What it's made of
Steamed sweet potato is worked into a paste and shaped into this simple confection. The gentle natural sweetness of the sweet potato and its moist texture are its defining traits, and it is said to be made from ingredients far easier to obtain than those of a traditional smooth-bean-paste yokan. Long loved as a sweet ordinary people could enjoy without much expense, it remains a standard item on wagashi shop shelves today.
How it's made
Peeled sweet potato is heated until soft and mashed thoroughly while still warm, until no large lumps remain. Sugar is added and it is worked into a smooth paste, then set into a mold to take shape. Trimming off the fibrous, tough part near the stem end is said to make it easier to pass through a sieve, and it is said to remain, even now, a simple sweet that can be made fairly easily at home.
Why it took this shape
In the Meiji era, traditional smooth-bean-paste yokan was expensive, and ordinary people are said to have had few chances to taste it. A sweet-potato wholesaler and a confectioner in Asakusa are said to have worked through trial and error, using the readily available sweet potato to create a substitute sweet, and this is said to be how imo-yokan was born — a cheaper, more approachable confection that was welcomed by ordinary people and took firm root in the old downtown of Edo.
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 Tokyo
- Abura SobaNo broth is poured at all — noodles are tossed in a soy-and-sesame-oil tare pooled at the bottom of the bowl, said to have started at shops in the Musashino area in the late 1950s, with vinegar and chili oil stirred in partway through.
- Ajitsuke NoriSheet nori brushed with a soy-and-sugar seasoning and toasted crisp, said to have been devised as a gift for an imperial visit to Kyoto in the Meiji era. Its snap gives way to a burst of flavor and aroma.
- Anago ZushiConger eel, simmered sweet and savory, is laid over sushi rice and brushed with a reduced glaze called tsume — a staple Edomae topping from a fish that thrived in Tokyo Bay's nutrient-rich waters, its slick skin demanding a sushi chef's careful hand to clean.
- AnmitsuCubes of agar jelly topped with red peas, sweet bean paste, and dark syrup. Said to have begun when a Ginza sweets shop in the early Showa era added its own bean paste to the simpler "mitsumame" — jelly and peas in syrup — marking a point where wagashi met café culture.
- Asakusa shichimiA seven-spice chili blend from a shop tracing back to 1625 in Asakusa's old Yagenbori district, often described as the origin point of shichimi togarashi. The neighborhood's history as a hub for medicinal-herb wholesalers is credited with shaping a blend informed by traditional Chinese medicine, and the shop is known for custom-mixing blends to order.
- Bettara-zukeDaikon salted first, then pickled sweet in rice malt and sugar — said to descend from a lightly pickled daikon once sold at Edo's ebisu-kō market. The rice malt gives it a natural sweetness, and it still headlines Nihonbashi's autumn "Bettara Market."