Tasting Notes 9
Dec. 28th, 2015 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmA few days at my mother's making do with Christmas dinner, pudding, chocolate and alcohol meant that I was forced to abstain from okashi, but now I've leapt off the wagon. So, let us explore another province of this interesting world....
These まめがし (or bean snacks) are described on the packet as 雀の卵 (sparrow eggs) or indeed 雀の学校 (school sparrows). Perhaps the latter is a hint that they would make a very nice schooltime snack, as indeed they would. To drive that point home, on the reverse side we find a scene in which a teacher sparrow is asking (if I understand it correctly) a mixed class of humans and sparrows to count to three. Like the schoolteacher chimp of an earlier entry, this teacher wears a mortar board. Was this ever the traditional headgear of schoolteachers in Japan, I wonder? Or have they somehow imbibed it from back-issues of The Beano?
This elegant box contained a most unexpected but actually very pleasant snack - small strips of konbu seaweed, dusted with a tangy, slightly sweet powder. I don't know what more I can say to convey its nature, but it was excellent.
These まめがし (or bean snacks) are described on the packet as 雀の卵 (sparrow eggs) or indeed 雀の学校 (school sparrows). Perhaps the latter is a hint that they would make a very nice schooltime snack, as indeed they would. To drive that point home, on the reverse side we find a scene in which a teacher sparrow is asking (if I understand it correctly) a mixed class of humans and sparrows to count to three. Like the schoolteacher chimp of an earlier entry, this teacher wears a mortar board. Was this ever the traditional headgear of schoolteachers in Japan, I wonder? Or have they somehow imbibed it from back-issues of The Beano?
This elegant box contained a most unexpected but actually very pleasant snack - small strips of konbu seaweed, dusted with a tangy, slightly sweet powder. I don't know what more I can say to convey its nature, but it was excellent.