🧊A SLICE OF ICE📐
One sweet that arrives just in time for the fierce summer heat is 'minatsuki' (水無月 aka 'minazuki').
Like many of Kyōto's mid-year confections, minatsuki are not themselves cooling, but were designed to turn our thoughts to ice and shade.
Minatsuki/minazuki (水無月) are made from 'uirō-mochi' (外郎餠), a steamed cake of rice or bracken flour and sugar.
The sweets are traditionally topped with a layer of red beans, cut into triangles, and wrapped in bamboo leaves.
The sweets are named after the sixth month in the traditional calendar.
'Minazuki' (水無月) can be translated as the 'Month of Water', referring to the flooding of the fields in preparation for the planting of rice seedlings.
Appearing in the Muromachi period, minatsuki were created to mimic the ice eaten around this time by the imperial court as part of a festival to cool down during the onslaught of summer.
Ice was prohibitively expensive, so the sweets were cut into triangles to look like ice🧊
Symbolism of minatsuki (水無月)...
⚪️White/clear uirō-mochi (外郎餠) = freshly fallen snow.
🫘Azuki beans = red is an auspicious colour said to ward off evil (especially important in summer when disease spreads easily).
📐Triangular shape = brings to mind ice and cools the body.
Camellia Tea Ceremony