Vegan sweets in September

According to the weather forecast, the temperature in Hamamatsu will be still over 30 degrees for the next seven days. However, confectionery stores have introduced some autumn sweets containing chestnut or sweet potato. One of my favorites is kuriyokan, jellied adzuki bean paste (yokan) with chestnuts. In most cases, yokan is sold as a thick bar, so I had thought it was impossible to have smaller one that is suitable for one person. But today, I found an interesting type of kuriyokan, at Shunkado (春華堂) on Kaji-machi Street near the station. It was called Mountain Peak with Chestnut. According to their website, two layers of yokan represent mountains with a color of twilight in autumn, and the chestnut represent glowing sunset.

I found it very sweet. The adzuki bean paste felt smoother than common kuriyokan I know. It was beautifully made and might be suitable to eat in a tea ceremony. But it was too sophisticated for me, and I thought I prefer simple steamed kuriyokan with big chestnuts.

In the basement of Entetsu Department Store, there were many autumn sweets, but it was difficult to find a vegan one even in Japanese confectionery shops. I found a lovely sweet that I thought was vegan and bought it home. It was called Red Dragonflies. This kind of dragonfly is often seen in rural areas and one of the symbols of autumn.

I liked the design of this sweet, but it turned out to be non-vegan. Though it was mainly made from sugar, white kidney beans, adzuki beans, agar, starch syrup, glutinous rice flour, it also contained kochiniru (コチニール), which I thought was just a food color. When I searched it on the PC at home, I found that it was an insect called cochineal that is used to have a red color! I wondered if it was the red dragonflies that contained cochineal.

I was shocked but ate it up any way. Though the sweet (dragonflies) was not vegan, I’m writing about it just for warning. Sweets containing コチニール should be avoided.