Misoman - Traditional sweet from north of Lake Hamana

Last Saturday, I visited Create Hamamatsu, a community center near Enshu Byoin Station of Enshu Railway Line. They had Winter Festival with stalls selling local products, concerts, etc. Among the food products, the most attractive one was a set of ten miso-manju (abbreviated as misoman), which is sold at only special events. Misoman is a well-known sweet in the area north of Lake Hamana. According to some websites, it was originally sold to travelers going to Hokoji Temple there. It was also served in Buddhist memorial services and eaten as a snack during the break in farm work. As its color is brown and reminds you of miso or fermented soybean paste, it is called misoman. The set sold last Saturday consisted of ten buns from ten different confectionary stores respectively. According to the man selling misoman, they were gathered by visiting each store early in the morning. As it was such a special set and selling well, there were only several packs left. I bought one without hesitating. In fact, ten buns were too many for me, so I took the pack to my relative’s house to ask them to help me eat them.

 At the bottom, there was a map of the area.

And another map even in the pack inside.

Look! Ten different misoman from different stores (surely with different taste).

The map in the pack showed the name of the stores and their locations. I didn’t know them at all, but my uncle and aunt knew some stores and recommended me their products. They were also surprised to see such a variety of misoman at a time.

I brought four misoman back home.

Generally, misoman are hand-made and last only for a few days. The main ingredients are wheat flour, adzuki bean paste, black sugar, etc. First, I had two of them. The left one is from Uchiyama Seika and the right one from Mikkabi Seika. Both of them, especially, the left one with dark brown color, looked delicious.

The inside looked like this.

As I expected, the left one had the rich taste of black sugar. In addition to relatively much black sugar, it also contained yam that made the texture of the skin soft. I liked this misoman very much. After drinking some hojicha or roasted green tea to remove the after taste, I ate the other one. I found immediately that the bean paste inside was much sweeter than the previous one. In addition to black sugar and white sugar, it contained also starch syrup. It was good but too sweet for me. So, I drank another cup of tea after eating it up.
   
On the next day, I had other two buns. The left one is from Irikawaya, and the right one from Okashi-no-Toyama. My uncle and aunt had eaten misoman from Irikawaya before, so they recommended me to take this.

The inside looked like this.

The one on the left contained Daifukuji (Temple) natto (fermented soybeans). I was worried how strange it would taste, however, it turned out to be moderately sweet and good. I could hardly feel the distinctive taste of natto, but its flavor was a little complicated to explain as it seemed to be a mixture of several ingredients. In addition to Daifukuji natto, it contained honey (so it was not vegan), agar, bamboo charcoal as unique ingredients that were not used in other misoman I ate.

The other one that I ate lastly had straight sweetness. Among the four misoman I had, this was the only one that contained miso and soy sauce. Though its color was dark, its taste was different from the first dark brown misoman with noticeable flavor of brown sugar.

Though the basic ingredients are the same, the four kinds of misoman from four different stores had their unique flavors and tastes respectively with addition of something extra. It was very interesting, and I wondered how the other six misoman I gave to my relatives tasted. I hope I’ll have a chance to get the set of ten misoman again to try the buns from other stores.

Misoman are also made by big confectionary stores in Hamamatsu, such as Shunkado that is famous for its eel pie. Their misoman are always available in the gift shop in JR Hamamatsu Station, and I highly recommend you to try them.