What is the traditional sweets in you country? Do you often eat that sweets?
One of the Japanese traditional and familiar sweet is Japanese sweet rice dumpling it called Odango お団子 in Japanese and there are many kinds of flavor of rice dumpling.
The Shapes
The Japanese sweet rice dumpling made from several powders such as rice, millet and more. Mix these powder and water and then make three or five balls with a diameter of about 2 centimeters. After that boil them or steam them.
There are several shapes of Japanese sweet rice dumpling and one of them is Kushi-dango 串団子. It is on a bamboo skewer. You do not need to get your hands dirty because you don’t need to touch the rice dumpling and it is easy to eat thanks to the skewer.
One of other shapes is Otsukimi-dango お月見団子. Pile up some steamed or boiled rice dumpling in a heap pyramidically.
Otukimi お月見
We have the custom of enjoying the beautiful moon in September. At that time we decorate grass called susuki and offer the Japanese sweet rice dumpling near the window where you can see the beautiful mooon.
Japanese people say that there is a rabbit in the moon because of the pattern of the moon so that a rabbit motif is often used in the season of the viewing the moon.
Flavors
As I mentioned above, there are so many flavors of Japanese sweet rice dumpling. Most familiar flavor is Mitarasi みたらし団子 which is sweet kudzu starch sauce with soy sauce and sugar. It tastes sweet and salty! Apart from that there are sesame, soybean flour, soy sauce with seaweed and mugwort flavor and more. I could find some fancy flavors at the shop. One of them is strawberry tastes with a sweet red bean paste and the other is strawberry flavor with strawberry whipped cream as the pictures.
The words
There are some expressions using the word “Dango (Japanese sweet rice dumpling)”
花より団子 Hana yori dango
Dumplings are better than cherry blossoms.
It is the same that “Bread is better than the songs of birds.”
It means people are prefer utility to elegant.
お団子頭 Odango atama
It is one of the hair styles, especially high bun. It looks like there is a dumpling on the head. We say Odango atama or Odango hair.
Summary
I have shared you about the Japanese sweet rice dumplings today. People have been enjoying it since a very long time ago but some tastes and shapes have been changing a little. However it is always so much delicious!
See you next time!
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