respect-for-the-aged-day (and rakugan confections)

Today we are celebrating Respect-for-the-Aged Day (敬老の日, Keirō no hi), which is a Japanese national holiday to honor elderly citizens. It used to be held on September 15, but now it's held on the third Monday of September so that we can make a long weekend of it (hopefully to use for entertaining our elderly parents and relatives).

Yesterday I was an observer at an event where celebratory confections were being handed out to everyone over seventy. One of these senior citizens, a good friend of mine, pulled a fancy box out of her handbag and asked me if I would like to have it. When she opened it for me, it turned out to be a rakugan confection in the shape of the face of a smiling old woman. My friend was daunted by the size of the thing and didn't care to eat it.

Rakugan is a confection made from a dough of sugar (or sweet syrup) and starchy powder (such as rice powder or potato starch). This is usually shaped into ornate, thumbnail-sized shapes in wooden molds where they become dry and stiff before being tapped out and arranged in pretty boxed collections, most often to accompany the somewhat bitter matcha tea in a tea ceremony. But there are larger versions to give as gifts or display as Buddhist altar offerings on holidays like today.

I'm not a huge rakugan fan (they're too dry and sweet for my taste), so I passed on my friend's offer, but then I thought it might be cool to take a photo and post it at the top for you to see. The photos below show the usual miniature confections in pretty, seasonal shapes. You can find a photo of some rakugan molds in the right column of the blog.

bon-gashi

O-Bon or the Bon Festival, which takes place in mid-August, is the time of year when the spirits of deceased ancestors are said to return to their former homes. Young nuclear families depart the urban centers in droves, and head to their ancestral bases in the countryside, where the elders of the extended family tend the Buddhist family altar (butsudan) and the family grave. While many of us may associate the Bon season with Bon-odori dances and paper lanterns, there is a type of wagashi that makes its appearance at this time too.

Bon-gashi (Bon confections), as they are called, are meant to be set in front of, or on, the family altar as an offering to the spirits of the ancestors. When the Bon celebration is over, the living family members eat the sweets. They are very pretty in appearance, and often molded into shapes associated with the afterlife, such as lotus blossoms and lotus leaves. Usually they are of the rakugan family of confections, which are shaped in wooden molds, are very dry, and have a long shelf-life. Rakugan confections are often served as the sweet counterpart to the slightly bitter matcha tea in traditional tea ceremonies. Basic ingredients include rice flour, soy flour, and sugar.

Though I have no use for butsudan offerings, each year I give in to the temptation to buy a box of these pretty sweets. But the truth is, I find them overly sweet and dry. Because I deplore wastefulness, I either force myself to eat them or give them away. Today, as I was flitting about the internet looking at photos of pretty Bon-gashi, I found a page that showed (with diagrams) how to turn one brand of these confections into a drink! I realized then, that I did not fully appreciate the possibilities of bon-gashi, and I plan to rectify this before the next O-Bon comes round.