Dig Japan #4 “Imagawayaki”
A series exploring topics related to traditional Japanese culture.
The topic for Dig Japan #4 is Imagawayaki, a Japanese disk-shaped confectionery made by filling dough with bean paste or custard cream and baking it in a mold. The name of this confectionery is not standardized, and it is called various names such as obanyaki depending on the region and the store.
In the area where I was born and raised, it is called obanyaki, and I remember that when I was a child, my grandfather would always buy me obanyaki from a food stall when he came to pick me up from kindergarten. Let’s unravel the history of Imagawayaki and the origin of the name.
Imagawayaki is generally made by pouring batter into a circular mold made of iron or copper, filling it with bean paste, and baking it into a thick disk shape. It first appeared in literature in the 1777 An’ei 4th year book Fuki Jizai in the section on Edo specialty sweets, but it’s unclear what kind of sweet it was at the time.
The current one can be found in Shimizu Harukaze’s Machi no Sugata (The Town’s Appearance), which describes the customs of the late Edo period. According to this book, it was baked on a small iron plate with six holes and sold at a food stall for four mon (the currency of the time) for two pieces. Since children’s pocket money at the time was about four mon, it can be said that it was targeted at children.
During the Meiji period, it was extremely popular as a snack for the common people and was widely sold. Morinaga Taichiro, founder of Morinaga & Co., even went so far as to say, “As long as there are sweet potato shops and Imagawayaki, it’ll be difficult for Western confectionery to enter Ginza.”
There is no reliable historical documentation as to the origin of the name, but the most famous one today is a store near Imagawabashi Bridge built by Imagawa Zen’emon, the lord of Edo Castle, in the mid-Edo period.
When the product was advertised and sold as Imagawayaki, it was well-received and became a common noun. However, this name is not standardized nationwide, and it’s called differently depending on the region and store.
Apart from Imagawayaki, another well-known name for it is obanyaki, which is popular in Tohoku, Tokai and Shikoku. Allegedly, it started around 1955 when a confectionery machine manufacturer in Ehime Prefecture started selling larger versions of Imagawayaki as obanyaki.
It is also called kaitenyaki or kaitenmanju due to the unique method of baking on a rotating circular baking tray with a central axis, and is a familiar name in Kansai and Kyushu. There are countless names for Imagawayaki, such as Hiroshima’s nijuyaki, Wakayama’s taikoyaki and Hokkaido’s oyaki.
Imagawayaki is basically filled with red bean paste, but there are also ones filled with white bean paste, custard cream, chocolate cream, matcha cream, strawberry jam, cream cheese, caramel sauce, and side dishes with hamburger steak and sausage.
words: hiroko