Egraphsen
Stephanie Cullingford
Theatrical Design
Sakuraco
Box Six - August 2021
Part Two
August 10th 2021
Somewhere in all this renovating, revamping and continual shuffling, I've managed to misplace my box of good cards (the ones I've earmarked for wall duty and not birthday cards. All this upheval was supposed to make things easier to find. But enough complaining: without further ado: the thrilling conclusion to my review of Okinawa, my sixth Sakuraco box...
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My picture wall is growing!​
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The Food (part two)
Beni Imo Tart
The packaging is done in bright shades of fuchsia and magenta in little squares - even smaller ones fill in the little heart; the designers have made good use of their botanical knowledge by using hearts. Sweet Potato leaves are heart shaped, and the green of the leaf and the yellow band help break up all the candy pinks. But let us now address the elephant in the room:
Don't you think they look like brains?
Ahem.
The potato/azuki mix is piped into the pastry casings and then baked. The texture remains a lot like mashed potatoes without any milk or cheese added. That slightly soy-sauce smell is around, which I've never really associated with sweet potatoes (or normal potatoes). Despite the tasting notes saying that the dough should be crispy, I find it a little soft, and perhaps a bit oversweet. Again, there is no real musty/earthy potato taste, mostly just azuki's vanilla, perhaps with a hint of vegetal funk, or maybe a suggestion of licorice. Bad, it is not. A convert, I am not. Talking like Yoda, I am. Stop, I will.
Apple and Mango Melange Jelly
I like to think, in my small way, I have improved the experience for all future Sakuraco Snackers - there is now a little note at the bottom of the page that tells us, yes, it should be refrigerated (or frozen) before eating. Sure, it could be that the previous ones have been packed when it was cool in Japan, or it could be that the others would have been fine, anyway. Let me have this. I love the package design/ the sticker - it's a sweet, slightly abstract geometric design. The pot is of frosted plastic, which gives the whole thing a very lux look, which dosen't quite transfer to the actual jelly. The fruit has been thoroughly pureed, so the whole jelly has a deep, translucent look. I dare say if you like mangos you will like this, but for me it tasted more like apples (well, at least they're honest!). The flavour profile is sweet and sour.
best part was that wiggly snip in
the corner: made it insanely easy to open
Kogane Shikuwasa Manju
Ok. Google, I'm going to need your help here. (I've gone with the most plausible translations, so don't eat me) Kogane is golden (in the Okinawa dialect) and Shikuwasa is a lime native to Okinawa (also known as Citrus depressa). So I'm going with a golden manju flavoured with lime.
Yep. works for me.
Physically, it's very similar to the brown sugar manju earlier in the box, round, slightly sticky, fluffy, yet resilient. This one has a strong citrus scent: it's called an Okinawa lime, but for me, it smells more like a mandarin or a satsuma (a satsuma is a mandarin who was really loved by their parents and wanted them to have all the advantages they never had). I love mandarin/satsumas. That's how I figured that I was allergic to citrus. Sad face.
Talk about Citrus depressa.
The kogane manju packaging isn't as pretty as the brown sugar, but it does let you know that you're in for some citrus, though I inagine most people would be expecting a sweeter, orange, type flavour. This manju feels a bit more cakey than the previous two, a bit like a yeasted cake, with a delicate bean and shikuwasa paste in the middle. The tasting notes say that it is a red bean, but it looks really pale and yellow to me (perhaps red beans are like red wine; you need to leave them with the skins to give them their colour). The citrus smell is more noticable than the flavour.
Sanpincha Tea
According to the tasting notes Sanpincha is a blend of Chinese and Japanese tea with jasmine added (it's an Okinawa special-tea*.)
The package is decorated with bingata designs.
I bought the tea set from a garage sale about eight years ago - I'm a sucker for lustre ware.
Look, we've been through this before, I don't like tea. I poured the hot water at 80 degrees and barely let it steep. It smells like tea and jasmine, it tastes like three kinds of bitterness, so I added some brown sugar shisa candy.
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*I'm hilarious
Grand Moff Tarkin's tea.
Probably why he's so bitter
Brown Sugar Shisa Candy
"Shisa are mythological guardians based on lions... and are used to bring in good spirits" says the tasting guide. Okinawan ones are "known as shi-shi (lion)... which are inescapable lion statues... [which] often sit outside by the entryway to buildings ... Always in pairs, the female lion is closed mouthed to keep in the good spirits, while the male lion is open-mouthed to scare away the bad spirits". In China they're known as Fu dogs, and probably came across with the tea. Because there is always a girl and a boy, you would think that you would get two in a packet. Well, you'd be wrong. You get one - with both heads! Which is a superb piece of lateral thinking!
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They remind me of the
Doorknobs in Labyrinth
The packaging is funky and brightly coloured (but does suffer from whatever the Japanese version of horror vacui is) which gives it a cool, tropical vibe, especially with the red hibiscus. The hibiscusalso turns up on the little individual packets, which is a nice tie in. They smell like brown sugar and they taste like brown sugar. Fine by me. The centre also tastes like brown sugar, but it doesn't make sanpincha taste any better.
Shikuwasa Jelly
It's a soft lemon/lime yellow, and quite translucent. What is also cool about the shquishy-wishy-wasa jelly, is that it was designed (like some of the melon products in the previous box) to use a endemic food (the shikuwasa) to draw attention to an area - in this case to reduce the economic gap between 'mainland' Japan and Okinawa. Okinawa is certainly on my list of places to visit (along with everything else!) because of the citrus. Running counter to this previous poverty are the senior citizens: usually lower economic areas have lower life expectancy (moral: captitalism is not necessarily great for your health) - isert laugh emoji.
One of the first items I pulled out of the box was this shiquwasa jelly ( a different anglicization of shikuwasa), but because it's a jelly, it is Shquishy-wishy-wasa which sounds delicious. It is also delicious (one you get it open - not nearly as convenient as the Melange). Imagine the most perfect lemonade - not overly sweet, not too sour, not fake yellow, naturally fruity: the sort of lemonade the Famous Five got packed at a village shop with sandwiches (and lashings of ginger beer) just before they embark on a cycling holiday, and THAT is what this jelly tastes like. This is what I want kuzumochi to taste like.
Kombu Arare Crackers
Kombu is a type of thick chunky seaweed that has been mixed in with the arare crackers, not to be confused with the thin delicate nori that I'm more used to (not a fan of seaweed crackers). A quick glance will show that there's a variation in between the arare to white and brown. A more detailed one (and I couldn't get this to photograph right) is that they are different colours under the brown, and within the white. I'm pretty certain that each colour is caused by a different flavour. The white with black dots, I think are pepper; the pink, prawns (safe bet); pure white horseradish. The brown is definitely soy-sauce (it says so in the book), and some colouring by toasting. They're interesting and good savory. The kombu, less so. It is unbelievably salty and uncomfortably crunchy. It was a bit like just going down to the beach and stuffing seaweed in your mouth.
Sata Andagi Beni Imo Doughnuts
Sata Andagi really does, basically, translate as 'doughnuts' and are an Okinawan specialty. The major difference is that doughnuts are usually fried with hot oil, whereas Sata Andagi are low fried, which a) allows the oil to penetrated deeper, and colour deeper, than just a thin band on the outside; and b) causes the outer section to crack into the shape of a smile or flower (flower would seem to be the most accurate description). Most importantly, they lack that uncooked white line that is 'essential' to a good doughnut - according to Bake Off - but which I find agressively unaesthetic. Roll them around a bit more!
We get two to a pack, which is clear plastic decorated with red ends and a pink circle with yellow and white writing. It's ... adequate.
I didn't get a picture of the bitten sata andagi, but you can really see the difference in the golden brown and the lilac dough - the oil penetrates quite a way in. The smell is a honey fruitiness, which gets stronger after being microwaved - everyone knows dougnuts are better warm - it now has a more jammy scent.
The inside is more like cake than perhaps a doughnut usually is, but the biggest surprise is that they are not filled, or the dough wrapped around a filling, but that the dough it's self is flavoured. Apart from a little spice, that's a new one on me, but a welcome one. I generally prefer a cinnamon doughnut to a jam/custard/nuttella/hotsauce etc., fillings that are in every doughnut shop, though a lemon curd doughnut will stop me in my tracks (Doughnotts of Nottingham [UK], if they're the ones I knew in 2016, make the world's best lemon curd doughnuts - back when they were selling from a hole in the floor).
Where was I?
Doughnuts good.
Sata Andagi good.
Oh, and they don't taste like potato either.
That's all Folks, the Box is done, and I give it 11/10, for taste, satisfaction, beauty, value for money, all those good things. I genuinely think this is the best box we've had (maybe because it includes everything I like and nothing I don't?). But what I loved best of all was the fact that it was Okinawa themed: and ten of the sixteen items are from Okinawa. Maybe I've been blind in previous boxes, but it seems that the spotlight prefectures earlier did not have this many items? (I counted the number in the Hokkiado book, that being closest to hand, and that had only five labeled as from, but a few more had Hokkaido in the title). Perhaps I just feel more connected to the prefecture and thus the box because of this.
Also, and you should be so proud of me for this, due to everything I've learned in my time here, I felt confidant enough to go to the local Japanese grocer/deli and buy some mochi to watch the Games with. Considering that they keep their crab-cakes and baumkuchen in the same section of the fridge, this a big deal!
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For happy lively time with your friends, let's relax with confectionaries
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See you in September!
~ Steph
