Rakugan

If you come to Japan in summer, you may find colorful objects on the sweets' shelves, like the left photo. Often times, they are colored in hot pink, yellow green, or white. Sometime, red-bean paste filing is inside, just like "Manjuu".
They are sweets for an offering to the ancestors. So I don't recommend you to buy those for your souvenirs.

In many cases, Japanese doesn't like lurid color especially for foods. But these sweets seems one of the exceptions.

The sweets is made by sugar and rice flour. Mixed them and pressed into molds.  This type of Wagashi is called "Rakugan" ("落雁" in Japanese). "raku" means fall, and "gan" means geese.
The sweets may have origin in Chine "軟落甘", which means soft and fall and sweet. This name describes the sweets' character very well,  crumble and powdery and so sweet. Even though the pronunciations of "雁" and "甘" is similar in Japanese, but why the geese?

According to one explanation, old Rakugan is not colored (= white) and have black sesame-seeds topping. It looked like the famous Japanese picture which presented geese flight in snowy sky. 
Unfortunately, I can't find the Rakugan which looks like the picture, but the nearest is this.

This is "Shiogama" named after the birthplace, placed in Miyagi-prefecture, one of the very damaged areas for the recent Tsunami.
Ordinary Rakugan is not for an offering, so you can buy any season, and can bring for your souvenirs.

Uirou

According to a theory, Uirou (外郎, in Japanese) is named after the ancient Chinese official title, who is regarded as initiator of this sweets. For another theory, he delivered the medicine and named as Uirou, and the sweets' color is similar to the medicine Uirou, so the same name was applied..

Uirou and traditional pellet

 I never see the medicine Uirou, but have traditional pellet which is similar color with the sweets Uirou. Evidently these have similar color, but I don't think the sweets was named after the medicine... they are totally different except the color.

This color of Uirou is come from brown sugar, not azuki-beans.

Uirou is traditionally black (brown sugar), but white (white sugar) is also common. There are some other variation, azuki-beans, maccha (green tea), sakura (cherry blossoms) and so on.

Minaduki

The right is Minaduki (水無月 in Japanese), white Uirou, cut in triangle-shape, azuki-beans sweetened paste topping. This is the sweets of the beginning of summer, common in Kyoto area. "Minaduki"means month of June. In old time, the court people opened the room of the ice, and ate the ice as a court event. Maybe the ice was so precious, Uirou sweets was delivered instead of the ice. That was the origin of Minaduki.
Even now, Minaduki is sold only end of June.

Kanten & Tokoroten

In the article "Youkan", I wrote one of ingredients of Youkan is "Japanese gelatin"= Kanten. Gelatin is animal food, but Kanten is jelly of vegetable origin, made of seaweed.

Kanten & Kanten-jelly

Take a look at the whitish translucent thing in the left photo. This is Kanten ( = agar, in Japanese"寒天") in traditional rod-like style. Today, powdered one is more common. To cook, tear into pieces, simmer and melt entirely.
Candies on/around Kanten are "Kanten jelly" or called "Misuzu-ame" in Nagano area. It is like gummy than candy but not elastic. There is also sugar-coated type, very similar to jelly-beans.




Kanten is prepared by freeze and dry. So the name Kanten means cold sky. We basically use them as a fixing, but sometimes eat it before freeze/dry. It calls Tokoroten.

Tokoroten (East style)

It is the traditional summer specialty. It has taste of seaweed, savor of the sea. You may not get in right with that...
In the east part of Japan (e.g. Tokyo), Tokoroten is served with vinegar and soy-source. But in the west area, it is served with black-sugar syrup. Each area people hate the other area's way...

Dango（Kushi-Dango)

Dango, in Japanese "団子", made by rice card, has spherical shape and one-bite size.

Mitarashi-Dango

There many variations of Dango, but in my opinion, most common Dango is skewed one, Kushi-Dango ("Kushi" means skewer ).
In east side of Japan (e.g. Tokyo), 4 dumpling per 1 skewer. On the other hand, 5 dumpling per 1 skewer in west side (Kyoto, Osaka). You can find the phenomenon at wikipedia, the Mitarashi-Dango in the upper photo is made in east side, and lower one is made in west (maybe Kyoto).
It is said, in the beginning, Dango had been sold as 5 dumpling per 1 skewer for 5-mon (currency unit), one coin. But later, 4-mon coin became more common. Dango-shops in Edo area changed 4 dumpling per 1 skewer for 4-mon, newer one coin. Shops in Kyoto area continued to sell as 5-mon I think.

Mitarashi-Dango is covered with source made by soy-source, sugar and starch. I call it "Ama-kara" which means sweet and salty. "Mitarashi" is named after the place, Kyoto area. The name "Mitarashi" is not common in Tokyo I think. We call it "Ama-kara" or "Yaki"(baked), "Shouyu"(soy source) or "Tare"(source).

Manjuu （Jouyo Manjuu)

In Kanji "饅頭", Japanese confectionery is called "Man-juu", meanwhile Chinese foods is called "Man-tou". These are the same foods? No. Precisely to say, these two have the same origin, but now are different foods. Manjuu commonly must have some filing inside. Mantou is kind of steamed bread, sometime has filing.

Historically, Manjuu/Mantou was allegedly invented by Zhuge Liang, famous as the strategist at Three Kingdom in China. He made this food as offering to the river-god, instead of human sacrifices. "頭" of "饅頭" means head, because it was made to look like a human head. So at that time, Manjuu/Mantou must have filing. Without filing, the food couldn't sink down into river and the god could not receive.

Later, the origin of Manjuu had came into Japan, Japanese arranged the filing to red beans paste from meat one, maybe because meat-diet was not so common in Japan at that time.

The left photo, Shihose manjuu, one of the Tokyo famous confections.
Shihose manjuu is said the original of "Jouyo manjuu", made of rice flour and grated the kind of potato (Yamato-imo) and steamed, red beans paste inside.
It is said "one-bite" manjuu, but I think it is "0.5-bite" manjuu. To small even for Japanese mouth...

Kashiwa-mochi

Kashiwa-mochi , in Japanese 柏餅, is one of the seasonal foods, eaten at May 5th, Children's day. In China, they have "Chimaki" for the same event, and some Japanese (or some areas) have "Chimaki" too. But I think Kashiwa-mochi is more common, at least in Tokyo area. In old days, Edo era, someone might be too lazy to make Chimaki, and created new food, rice-cake wrapped in a leaf, red bean paste (sweet) inside, Kashiwa-mochi.

Kashiwa-mochi

"Kashiwa" is the name of a tree. Generally written as "柏" in Japanese, type of oak, very common in Japan.
But... in China, same Kanji means totally different tree, type of conifer. I wonder why ancient Japanese mistook conifer for oak. It seems too different...

Kashiwa-leaf can't be eaten, just for wrapping. It is said Kashiwa-leaf has bactericidal effect and convenient to handle.

Youkan

Youkan in slice

In Japanese, 羊羹. 
The first letter means sheep, and the latter means soup. Then, is it made of mutton? -No. Is it hot fluid? -No. No hot nor fluid. It is made of bean paste and sugar and Japanese gelatin, so rather like jelly.

Originally, it was the vegetable diet for holy orders. They could not eat animals, so bean was used to imitate meats. At first, it had possibly meant hot sheep soup, as self-explanatory. Next it became to mean the congealed sheep soup. And then, someone add sugar, it turns to sweets from vegetarian dish.

Youkan in package

Youkan usually shapes as rectangular box and eaten in slices. To slice too thick, or too thin, both means vulgar. But slicing as proper thickness is not so easy... maybe so, some youkan has a scale on it's package.