Dagashi (Japanese: ???) refers to cheap candies and snack foods. Dagashi are comparable to American penny candy. The word "dagashi" is derived from the Japanese words "da" ("futile" or "negligible") and "kashi" (snacks). The low price and fun packaging is designed to attract children with small allowances, and "dagashi" came to be known as the small candies that children can afford with pocket money. Most dagashi are packaged in bright, childish wrapping and sometimes come with a small toy or prize. The toys are often small figurines, and a common prize is a randomized prize that will allow the holder to claim a second free snack. Dagashi used to be sold in stores specializing primarily in dagashi called "dagashiya" (Japanese: ????), but are now increasingly sold in convenience stores as well.
Video Dagashi
History
While the modern dagashi was developed after World War 2, dagashi has been around since the Edo period (1603-1868), though the region of origin is unknown. "Dagashi", made from starch or corn, was the commoner equivalent of the more expensive "j?gashi", which was higher quality and made from white sugar. Modern dagashi experienced its greatest popularity from the 1950s to the early 1980s in Japan when dagashiyas were common and a staple after-school hangout spot for younger students. However, in the early to mid- 1980s, dagashiya stores began to diversify their products or were replaced by convenience stores. As of 2016, dagashi can still be found in the occasional dagashiya or ordered online. Culture expos in Japan (especially for schools) sometimes include dagashi and dagashiya displays.
Maps Dagashi
Types
The variety of dagashi that can be bought include hard candy, gum, chocolates, cakes, and certain types of pastries, like donuts. While it can refer to sweet candy, dagashi also includes snacks such as juice powders and flavorings, potato and corn snacks, small cups of ramen, rice crackers, flavored squid, and preserved fruit. Considered somewhat unhealthy and sometimes low-quality, dagashi are often packaged with a heavy amount of artificial flavoring and preservatives.
An extremely popular dagashi is commonly marketed outside of Japan as Botan Candy--often called by the general term "rice candy". Traditionally, this sweet's main ingredients are sweetened rice and pomelo juice. In Japan, pomelos are called bontan. Pomelo is a type of citrus fruit that came to Japan from Southeast Asia in the 18th Century. Each piece of bontan ame is wrapped in oblaat, which is an edible, thin cellophane made of rice starch. Oblaat was introduced to Japan by Dutch pharmaceutical companies in the late 19th Century to wrap bad tasting medicine so that it could be swallowed without tasting any bitter powder. Bontan ame isn't wrapped in oblaat because it tastes bad; it's wrapped in oblaat to keep the pieces of candy from sticking together. Bontan ame was first produced in the 1920s when many Japanese people were getting their first taste of Western foods and sweets. It was purposely designed to look and feel much like popular Western milk caramel but still be suited to Japanese tastes.
Dagashiya
Dagashiya are the traditional stores that sell dagashi. Besides dagashi, dagashiya often sell other treats or small toys and may have coin-operated or arcade-style games. After school, children often stopped by a dagashiya to purchase the cheap snacks and socialize with each other and the shop owners. Though in decline due to convenience stores, dagashiya can still be found in Japan, with around 50 in the Tokyo area.
Cultural references
With the proliferation of convenience stores and increase of youth wealth, traditional dagahiyas have been declining rapidly. However, dagashi and dagashiyas have attained more attention in Japanese pop culture with the release of the anime Dagashi Kashi. The anime covers some of the most popular dagashi, as well as more obscure kinds.
List of Dagashi
(This list is not comprehensive.)
- Dice Caramel (caramels in cube paper packaging printed to look like dice)
- Umaib? or Umai-bou (Cheetos-like snacks that come in over 36 flavors)
- Tirol (a type of chocolate dagashi that comes in cube paper packaging sometimes printed to look like Japanese pop culture or anime icons)
- Fugashi (long strips of dough baked to a spongey and flakey texture and coated in brown sugar)
- Ume Jam (a pickled plum soaked and packaged in sour, red sauce.)
References
Further reading
- "Time Traveling with Dagashi Candies". Web-Japan. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
- "Dagashi". Tokyo Treat. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
- "The Nostalgic Taste of "Dagashi" Snacks". Nippon.com. Retrieved February 6, 2016.
- "In Our Candy Drawer - Dagashi". Candy Atlas. Retrieved September 14, 2017.
External links
- Have you tried Japanese snack DAGASHI? at Japan Info
- In Our Candy Drawer - Dagashi at Candy Atlas
Source of article : Wikipedia
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