it is interesting.
I will agree with that much, as a site admin for wineberserkers we highly highly discouraged a full scale copy of text. I didn’t see how much text was posted here but when it’s a large wall of text we take it down.
We’ve had take down notices sent to us. Easier to just remove than fight it.
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Bookmarked.
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Continuing to beat the dead horse, from that two-year-old Eater article:
Several of those interviewed say that the apology’s placement underneath a caption for mugwort mochi made it difficult to find and thus felt insincere.
It was just as easy to find as the original, which was a caption for a photo of sakura mochi.
You just missed Beserkerday which is an insane sale on wine, food, stemware and a bunch of other stuff. Look for it on the board and put a reminder in your calendar for next year. I filled up my cabinet with Glasvin this year. Thanks @David_K
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there’s a whole part of the forum that’s only accessible to registered/logged in users. Pretty much Misc chat
I was searching for sakura mochi after having a good experience with Ginza Akebono’s in in Tokyo and talking to some friends who were recently in Japan for sakura season. (Of course the season is past - I had it in late February)
Apart from the whole cultural politics of sakura mochi-gate, I find the sakura mochi from Shibumi’s instagram picture to looks kind of peculiar in its proportions.
- The proportion of mochi to filling, in how it doesn’t really envelop / drape at the end. Unusually large amount of filling near the end, so the rice crepe doesn’t give enough purchase with a little extra fold / enclosure. While I’ve seen various shapes of sakura mochi in Japan, still every one had considerably more crepe at the end, even to the point of pinch / fold.
- The very narrow cut of the pickled sakura leaf. The wide pickled sakura leaf is part of the origin story of sakura mochi and as I understand it, also fairly important to how it’s presented / served / and even how it can be eaten (optional to eat the leaf for sourness as balance / foil to the sweetness). I’m not holding it to 7-8cm standard or whatever is traditional from the founding shop, but having it so narrow looks unusual to me. Shibumi’s looks like it might be quite a bit sweeter, with more filling and less leaf. What I really liked was the pillowy sensation of the long, thin crepe and the contrasting taste of the leaf in proportion.
I’m not an expert at all in sakura mochi or wagashi or sweets in general, but in researching some sakura mochi, I’ve never seen it with such proportions. Shibumi’s might be modeled after one I just haven’t come across yet. I understand that this supposedly chomeiji style in construction (the style in Kanto region, originated in the early 1700s by the Sumida river, Tokyo). It’s clearly not intended to be domyoji-style steamed (as favored in the Kansai region). Even if chef Schlosser once worked at Kitcho or Kikunoi (both in Kansai region yet seem to serve chomeiji style, I think, based on pictures…it’s hard to tell because the leaf is so wide, closer to the original style of Ohshima sakura leaves in proportion, it seems)…the Shibumi sakura mochi looks like a departure from anything traditional or prolific I could find, but it could be that I just haven’t come across that style yet.
Not wanting to rehash the whole appropriation / representation part of sakura-gate, but I’m wondering where in LA can I find good sakura mochi, particularly a more classically styled chomeiji sakura mochi / closer to the kind you’d more traditionally find in Japan (when in season, of course. I realize the season is past)?
Like such
(from the original store that introduced it)
(my pic from Ginza Akebono)
found on Google, but representative of the shape)
Cf. Shibumi’s
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Mori Nozomi had it a few weeks ago but my guess is she no longer has it.
Thanks. From the pictures I’ve seen, Mori Nozomi’s is domyoji style, although it looks good and classically proportioned. Thats Kansai style steamed glutinous rice cooked with a different texture.
I’m more interested in chomeiji style, i.e. Kanto style with the thin wheat or rice flour crepe that is more wrapped around like a pouch. To me, the wrap / envelope edge and wide pickled leaf are integral, and based on Shibumi’s picture, theirs seems to have different proportions.
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hi @pomodoro,
gee i haven’t seen that style, in la. which i guess was schlosser’s point in his sakura-gate post.
looking back at old pictures i’ve had this version before at shibumi before sakura-gate. it looks like he’s only using half the sakura leaf though.
you may have better luck requesting that style from local wagashi makers. yah, thanks.
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thanks, @PorkyBelly . gee, your pic looks like the sakura mochi is constructed much more proportionally than the original sakura-gate IG picture. this one looks much, much more like the normal Kanto style. taking a look, from the proportion/wrap to the pickled sakura blossom, this one seems better.
while its presentation is a bit odd/untraditional, this could be for a specific reasons. the original maker of sakura mochi uses a lot of specific leaves (apparently estimated around 80% use the same leaf), but in California, they may be shaped or calibrated differently for pickling. despite the original, many others use a bit less leaf than the founding shop but more than pictured here. I’ve never seen it as thin as this, but perhaps because the anko is “laced with cherry flowers” and the intention of transferring fragrance from the pickled leaf is lost anyway as a “dessert” in an izakaya-like setting. i guess that’s kind of Shibumi’s presentation, though, it seems a bit of wide traditional inspiration with a California twist and modification. it also could be that the sakura leaves here are just smaller or less plentiful.
yah, i think so. thanks.
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In Tokyo last week, I visited the originator of Tokyo-style sakuramochi: Yamamotoya aka Chyomeiji Sakuramochi. They’ve been continuously operating for over 300 years!
The salted cherry blossom leaves are specific and though others suggest that the leaves can be edible (when smaller in proportion), here they told me to not eat the leaves. Notice the fold and the “hidden” aspect of the presentation.
This is Kanto-style sakuramochi. Kansai-style sakuramochi, called Domyoji sakuramochi, uses a coarse ground rice flour named after the Domyoji Temple in Osaka. Domyoji sakuramochi is a later adaptation, so this Kanto-style chyomeiji sakuramochi as here at Yamamotoya is the original.
I would like to revisit during sakura season. I believe they may use sakura in the flour then so the appearance of the rice “crepe” is more pink.
I understand though that David Schlosser had some training in Kyoto at Arashiyama Kitcho, which actually serves a similar presentation with the long leaf. Despite being in the Kansai region, Kitcho seems to serve the Kanto style sakuramochi during the sakura season. (It doesn’t seem particularly common to serve this as a “dessert” at the end of a course meal in Japan.)
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This is a very interesting wagashi to me. Through some research, I believe that concealment / wrapping is an integral part of the presentation of sakuramochi.
For one, it seems that’s how the inventor intended it because the specific sized sakura leaves were to cover the whole of the mochi. See pic 1, you can’t see the sakuramochi beneath when it’s first served. This was because the salted sakura leaves were for 2 things, per the maker:
- keeping the crepe moist and
2. revealing a fragrance when it’s lifted off. The sakura leaves are salted, thereby creating a fragrance compound called “coumarin” that you can sense when peeling off the leaves. The proprietress motioned to me to smell with surprise as I lifted off the leaf.
I think there’s also a visual element of revealing something that was concealed. The fragrance is part of it, just as the anko is hidden inside (the anko’s contrasting color is barely visible through the crepe). Even in the fatter Domyoji style, while the chunky Domyoji rice is visible, the anko is fully concealed until it’s bitten into. This reminds me of taking off the lid in an owan or chawanmushi course, and the general aesthetic choice of restraint in hiding ingredients to reveal a latent surprise. You see this in various Japanese courses - the best ones are almost poetically in tune with the vessel and seasonal theme (such as digging through kaburamushi at the end of winter/beginning of spring and getting to a flower motif at the end of the dish). I digress and even back to traditional sweets, you still often see concealment / wrapping in presentation.
Now eating the leaves or a portion thereof has become a matter of preference. One famous food influencer said it’s supposed to be eaten together as she likes the salty-sweet combination. But the inventor of sakura mochi says there’s no one correct answer, and they recommend the leaves be taken off.
The original leaves were supposed to be a specific size but of course they vary by location. Keeping a smaller part of the leaf is totally fine and intentional by some other makers to add some contrasting taste and fragrance. The anko originally is not laced with cherry flowers, but certainly along the way someone decided to make this adaptation. Even now at Yamamotoya, they do not lace the anko with cherry flowers. On the thinness of the sakura leaf for the one at Shibumi, I believe that’s a sourcing/ingredients issue so some adaptation had to be made. It could also be cut to give a small portion of the pickled leaf.
It is perhaps a little bit ironic that the sakuramochi pictured in the original post (purportedly used to educate people on sakuramochi) was proportioned so untraditionally, with the taco-like anko filling visible to the edge of the pancake, as if the crepe was too small or the anko filling was too stuffed.
Now, I see that during the season (which should be early March through May), Fugetsudo actually has both Kanto and Kansai styles on offer! I guess I’ll have to wait until next year, but I wanted to try Yamamotoya in Tokyo for some education on the original thing.
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