Vegan sweets in March

Last month, I introduced ichigo daifuku and uguisumochi of Mataichian (又一庵) in Entetsu Department Store. Since Mataichian makes good bean paste, you’ll never be disappointed with any of their sweets. But the shop is most famous for its kintsuba.

Kintsuba is a sweet that is usually made of adzuki bean paste wrapped in a thin wheat flour skin. In addition to this typical one, Mataichian makes some variations according to seasons. Now they have cherry kintsuba.

The skin is pale pink, adding a tone of spring. The inside is coarse white bean paste. And it has a real cherry blossom on top! It is salted but still has fragrance. I think this is one of the most springlike sweets in Entesu Department Store.

In addition to this kintsuba, mataichian has some other spring sweets. One of them is sakuramochi, It is a very popular sweet sold in many confectionery shops, supermarkets, and convenience stores at this time of year. When I came to Mataichian today, all sakuramochi for individual selling were sold out. There were only packs containing two pieces respectively. So, I went to another shop Seikanin (清閑院) in the basement of the department store to buy one.

Sakuramochi has also a pink color. It is wrapped with a salted cherry leaf whose flavor goes very well with the sweet adzuki paste inside. The outside is made of Domyojiko rice flour and has a texture of crushed rice. If you think Japanese sweets are monotonous with just adzuki bean paste, try sakuramochi! I love its unique taste and texture. 

In fact, there are two kinds of sakuramochi, and the one I ate is Kansai (Western Japan) style. The other sakuramochi is Kanto (Eastern Japan) style. Maybe I’ll introduce it some other day. I found a shop that sells Kanto style sakuramochi, but I got interested in other kind of sweet there. It was two-color dumplings.

One of the dumplings was pink and stuffed with white bean paste, and the other was green with mugwort and stuffed with adzuki bean paste. And they were wrapped with a salted cherry leaf. What a gorgeous combination!

I bought this in Shunkado (春華堂), one of the best-known confectionery shop in Hamamatsu. It is famous for its eel pie, but it was originally a Japanese confectionery shop and has some unique sweets. 

Vegan tempura and sushi from Bio Atsumi

I went to see cherry blossoms in the morning. There weren’t many buses from there, and it took more than one hour to go back. When I arrived at the bus terminal near the train station, it was over 12:00. I didn’t feel like preparing lunch at home, so I went to Bio Atsumi to look for ready-to-eat food. This time, I bought inarizushi and kakiage.

Inarizushi is sushi rice stuffed in deep-fried tofu skins. Since tofu skins are sometimes flavored with dried-bonito broth, inarizushi is not always vegan. But the one sold in Bio Atsumi is vegan as the tofu skins are flavored with soy sauce, sugar, sweet cooking rice wine, and salt.

Kakiage is a kind of tempura with mixed vegetable strips, shrimps, etc. Bio Atsumi has two kinds of vegan kakiage. One of them contains carrot, onion, and leek strips. The other contains pumpkin, sweet potato, and carrot strips, and sesame. I think the batter is also vegan because egg is not indicated as a food allergen contained in kakiage.

Though I like fried food, I don’t make tempura at home because handling of oil is too much work. Today I ate kakiage after a long time. I felt they were more substantialicious than they looked, but the combinations of vegetables, especially pumpkin and sweet potato, were good. Maybe I like kakiage better than ordinary tempura with just one kind of vegetable.

Cherry blossoms & canola flowers

Today I went to see Kawazuzakura, a kind of cherry tree famous for its early blooming. It originated in Kawazu-cho in Izu Peninsula in the east part of Shizuoka Prefecture. Last Monday, I learned from local newspaper that this weekend would be the best time to see Kawazuzakura in Hamamatsu. This morning, I took the bus #41 from the bus terminal near the train station to Hanakawa Undo Koen.

It took about 50 minutes to get there. It was the last bus stop located near Hanakawa Sports Park. From there, I couldn’t see any cherry blossoms. As I walked westward in the park, I found some people who seemed to go to the same destination as I did. On the way there, I found a tree with blossoms. This may be a cherry tree, but not Kawazuzakura.

Kawazuzakura were planted on both banks of the river Hanakawa. I learned later that there are 400 trees. They were in full bloom, and their pink color was seen in distance as I appoached. There were already many people walking on both sides.

On the other side of the river, there were also canola flower fields looking like yellow carpets.

There were some stalls that sold foods. I bought skewered dumplings with sweet soy sauce prepared on the spot. They sold two skewers just for 100 yen! The dumplings seemed popular as there was a long queue. They were fresh and warm.

The length of the row of cherry trees is 1 km. I crossed the bridge to walk on the other side.

This side was more beautiful with the canola flower fields.

You could also walk through the fields.

The weather was fine and warm. People were enjoying the bright colors of the two kinds of flowers. It was really a spring day!

BAGEL & BAGEL - Vegan bread available in JR Hamamatsu Station

When I went on a trip to Nagasaki the other day, I bought my lunch before getting on Shinkansen. In Shinkansen, box lunches are available, but they are not for vegetarians/vegans. So, I had to take something with me. I was going to meet my mother at 7:30 near the ticket gate of Shinkansen. Before that, I went to Bagel & Bagel and bought some bagels. To my surprise, my mother did the same (but not for lunch) before we met. Bagels are good to eat under a long train trip because they are pretty filling.

BAGEL & BAGEL is a nationwide bagel chain with more than 40 shops. The open hours vary depending on shops, and the one in May One Ekimachi West in JR Hamamatsu Station is open from 7:00 to 22:00. It is convenient not only for travelers but also for commuters. The shop is easy to find because it is in front of an automatic glass door.

Yesterday, I found a sign with a picture of a bagel sandwich in front of the glass door. It was a seasonal new sandwich called “spring vegetables and cheese omelet” and looked suitable for vegetarians. Spring vegetables were canola flowers and snap peas. I didn’t want to any sandwiches but went inside. I noticed an indication saying that you can get six bagels you like for 1080 yen! One bagel costs 180 to 200 yen, so it may become less expensive.

I chose six vegan bagels (those without 乳 (milk) written as an ingredient) out of some more options.

When I got home, I tried the most delicious-looking one and the most interesting one. They were Triple Berry and Soy Milk & Edamame.

Triple Berry is a brand-new product with strawberries, cranberries, and blueberries contained. According to the website of BAGEL & BAGEL, it is on sale from February 25 to April 7. It had a beautiful color and sweet smell. As I expected, it was delicious and not too sweet.

Soy Milk & Edamame was also good, but edamame or green soybeans were small pieces, and I couldn’t feel their taste very much. It seemed to be sweetened with apple juice, and this sweetness was more noticeable.

Today, I had Sesame and 15 kinds of Grain for lunch. They were simple but nutritious.

In fact, I thought of keeping the remaining two in the refrigerator to eat on some other day. But I couldn’t wait because they were my favorites. I ate Cinnamon Raisins and Maple Walnuts for dinner.

I like the flavor of maple syrup. It tasted especially good when I was tired after work.

Trip to Nagasaki (5) - Traditional vegan sweets

Nagasaki is in the island Kyushu where the climate is warm. In Kyushu, they cultivate some fruits, especially citrus fruits, that are rare in Hamamatsu. Near Oura Church in Nagasaki, there was a shop that sold zabon juice, fresh zabon, etc. Zabon is a big citrus fruit whose diameter can be more than 20 cm. My mother and I drank a cup of juice from a blender. It was cold but refreshing. Several years ago, I ate fresh zabon. It tasted like a grape fruit, but the texture was a little firmer.

My mother bought a pack of crystallized zabon peel as a souvenir for her friend. It looked like this. I learned later that this is a traditional sweet in Nagasaki.

Since I didn’t want to take much sugar, I bought other thing for myself. In Lantern Festival, I ate a pack of kankoromochi. It is a traditional sweet of Goto Islands made of sweet potatoes, glutinous rice, and sugar.

As kankoromochi is a kind of mixture of a steamed sweet potatoes and rice cakes, it had a unique elastic texture though the taste was that of sweet potatoes. I liked it, so I was glad to find some kinds of kankoromochi sold in a souvenir shop in JR Nagasaki Station. I bought two kinds. Both of them contain sesame and thick malt syrup in addition to common ingredients. The right one contains also mugwort.

I think I’ll eat them later, because their expiration dates are in May 2019.

Trip to Nagasaki (4) - Church destroyed by atomic bomb

The check-out time was 12:00, so we went back to the hotel around 11:45. As it was lunch time, restaurants on the guidebook were surely crowded. After check-out, we bought a one-day ticket of the tram and went to JR Nagasaki Station. There we left our baggage in a locker and had a lunch in a Chinese restaurant. When it is impossible to have a vegetarian or vegan dish, I choose fish rather than meat. This time, I had saraudon with vegetables and seafood on. Then, we took a tram in front of the train station.

The last destination of this trip was Urakami where the atomic bomb was dropped on August 9, 1945. It was also a district where hidden Christians lived. As I wrote in the last article, they came to Oura Church in 1865 and confessed their faith to Father Petitijean though the ban of Christianity still continued. In 1867, a severe crackdown (Urakami Yoban Kuzure) began, and all the believers in Urakami were finally transported to other regions in Japan. They went through forced labor and tortures for conversion, and 662 out of 3394 people died. When the ban of Christianity ended in 1873, the survivors returned to Urakami. After that they started to build their own church. In 1914, Urakami Cathedral was completed. It was said to be the largest church in the East. The atomic bomb was dropped 500m away from this church.

Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum is located near the tram stop Atomic Bomb Museum. The exhibition was started with pictures taken before August 9, 1945. One of them was taken in a sacrament of confirmation. In the picture, there were many children dressed neatly in kimono, and the hairstyle of the girls reminded me of a picture of my grandmother in her childhood. I wondered how many of them survived from the bomb, and became sad.

The atomic bomb dropped in Nagasaki killed about 74,000 people. Urakami Cathedral was also destroyed beyond recognition. All the people inside were killed. There was a rosary melted by heat exhibited in a showcase. It was horrible.

As in Hiroshima, there was a clock that stopped when the bomb was dropped. It showed 11:02. In the museum, it was prohibited to take pictures. But some of the exhibits were unforgettable. The pictures taken after the bombing were painful to look at: charred bodies, people badly burned, rubble, etc.

In addition, there was a room that showed a chronological table of wars, victims of experiments of nuclear weapons, and so on. The exhibition of this museum was very well organized. After we left the museum, we walked to Urakami Cathedral. It was just 7-minute walk, but it was a little tiring because we had to go up slopes. The church was rebuilt in 1959.

In front of the church, there were ruins of the old church destroyed by the atomic bomb.

Urakami Cathedral was admission free. When we arrived there, there was a chorus group inside singing in front of the alter. We walked through the backmost passage quietly, seeing stained glass and hearing their song. Both stained glass and the song were very beautiful, and I thought this was really a church for believers. I imagined that there might be descendants of survivors of the atomic bomb in the chorus group.

Before we returned to Nagasaki Station, we dropped in a dance shop near JR Urakami Station because my mother wanted to see dresses. The owner of the shop said that she had seen the pope. It was Pope John Paul II who visited Urakami Cathedral in 1981.
We left JR Nagasaki Station at 15:47 and arrived at Hamamatsu at 22:27. Though the schedule was rather hard, both my mother and I had a very good time during the trip.

Trip to Nagasaki (3) - Oura Church and Glover Garden

Next morning, we relaxed at the hotel until 9:00. They provided a great breakfast buffet, including local specialties such as saraudon. It is deep-fried noodles with thick sauce including vegetables and seafood on top. In the hotel, noodles and the sauce were provided separately, so I took some noodles and vegetables in the sauce. The noodles were very thin and crispy, reminding me of snack confectionaries. I wanted to have them at home and wondered if they were sold separately in stores, not with the sauce.

After eating substantial breakfast, we went to Oura Church near the hotel. It is the oldest existing church in Japan established in 1865 and dedicated to the memory of 26 martyrs who were executed in Nagasaki in 1597. It was originally intended for French people living in Nagasaki, because Christianity was still forbidden in Japan.

On March 17, 1865, a group of Japanese people came to Oura Church. They were hidden Christians from Urakami, about 4 km from the church. When Father Petitjean let them in and prayed, one of them came to him and confessed their faith, saying “We have the same hearts as you do.” Then she asked, “Where is the statue of Virgin Mary?”

This is known as “discovery of believers” after more than 250 years of suppression of Christianity. The next year, believers in Urakami donated a great sum of money they had saved in poverty, saying that this was for the God and Virgin Mary. Father Petijean ordered a statue of Virgin Mary to France, which is now at the entrance of the church, as a memory of discovery of believers.

Though I’m not a Christian, I was moved by this history of Oura Church. In 2018, it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of “Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region.” It’s a pity that it was prohibited to take pictures inside. As it was a fine day, light coming through stained glass made it more beautiful, and the atmosphere was cozy and warm. This is the entrance ticket of the church with a picture of the alter.

As you see, the admission fee is 1000 yen. It includes entry to the museum outside. In the museum, you can learn about the 26 martyrs and the history of Christianity in Japan and see a short film of the life of Jesus Christ. There is also a shop where you can buy some souvenirs. My mother bought three cans of kompeito, a kind of sugar candy.

The museum was informative. However, I still thought the admission fee was too expensive. It was also unreasonable that you had to pay 1000 yen even if you just wanted to go inside the church itself. I wondered if it was suitable for a church to charge so much money in such a case because I had imagined that churches were open to everyone regardless of his/her economic situations.

After that, we went to Glover Garden adjacent to the church. This area was established as a foreign settlement in the second half of 19th century, and you can see several old Western style houses in the garden. The main residence is that of Thomas Blake Glover, a Scottish merchant who contributed to modernization of Japan. Unfortunately, it was impossible to go inside the house because it was under repair. But it was not so cold outside, and we could enjoy the view toward the port. The weather was fine and refreshing.