Sweets
Tsukino Shizuku
Tsukino shizuku — a Koshu grape coated whole in hardened sugar glaze
Thick-skinned Koshu grapes are dipped one by one in molten sugar glaze and left to harden — a confection from Kofu, said by legend to have begun when a grape fell into boiling sugar syrup at a Kofu sweet shop, and already noted in Edo-period guidebooks.
- Origin: Yamanashi Kofu
- About 110 km west of Tokyo
What it's made of
Thick-skinned Koshu grapes are dipped one by one into a worked white sugar fondant and left to set. The candy shell is said to crumble softly at a bite, releasing the grape's juicy sweet-tartness inside. It's a refined sweet, finished grape by grape through painstaking hand work, locals say.
How it's made
Sugar and water are boiled down until they form a thread, then cooled and worked hard with a pestle into a fondant base. The melted fondant, kept at a careful temperature, is used to dip each grape before it's set to cool, people say. It's said to be the thick skin of the Koshu grape specifically that lets it survive a dip in such hot syrup without breaking apart.
Why it took this shape
The Koshu grape's skin is said to be thick enough to withstand hot syrup, and its balanced acidity is said to suit this confection especially well. A story is told of sugar being boiled at a sweet shop in the Edo period when a grape fell in and set, marking the sweet's beginning. That it's still made only in the harvest season, when fresh grapes are available, seems to speak to a sweet-making tradition built around making the most of what the season offers.
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 Yamanashi
- Akebono Daizu no EdamameThe 'akebono' soybean, said to be 1.6 times the size of an ordinary bean, is picked young and salt-boiled — an edamame from the Akebono area of Minobu town. Grown since the Meiji era but resistant to mechanization, aging growers have made it scarce enough to be called a 'phantom bean'.
- Amanatto no OsekihanMade without azuki or cowpea beans, glutinous rice is dyed red with food coloring and mixed with candied sweet beans — a Yamanashi take on celebratory red rice, sweet-salty with a sprinkle of sesame salt. A similarly sweet red rice is said to exist far away in Hokkaido and parts of Tohoku.
- Awabi no NigaiAbalone from Suruga Bay was soy-sauce-marinated and hauled in barrels by horse, the jostling and body heat said to have worked the flavor deep in — a specialty from landlocked Kofu. Sliced thin and paired with its liver, shiso, and cucumber, it endures as a taste of the sea inland.
- Azuki HotoHoto noodles, cut thicker than usual, are simmered in sweet azuki bean soup in place of mochi — a festival food in Yamanashi. The summer festival at Miwa Shrine in Hokuto city's Wakamiko area is nicknamed the 'hoto festival', and azuki's red color is said to ward off misfortune.
- Hirauchi TanmenA salt-based tanmen from Kofu, Yamanashi, built on wide, flat noodles said to feel almost like fettuccine. Bean sprouts, pork, and napa cabbage pile on top for a vegetable-heavy bowl carried on today by several shops around the prefecture.