🍱 Decchi-yokan

Dōchi-yokan is a specialty of Shiga Prefecture, made by steaming wheat flour (or rice powder) mixed with a paste made from red beans and sugar. Another characteristic is that the yokan is wrapped in bamboo skin, and with a faint scent of bamboo, a springy texture, and a simple taste, this yokan is popular. When making kneaded yokan, agar is used, but it is said that wheat flour was used as a binding agent instead of agar because it was difficult to obtain in Omi, where there is no direct access to the sea. However, in the Shigaraki region, decchi-yokan refers to mizu-yokan hardened with agar. There is a theory that the name “decchi-yokan” came from the fact that it was an inexpensive confectionery that even apprentices (“decchi” in Japanese) with low wages could purchase when apprentices who had come from the Omihachiman area to serve in Osaka, Kanto, and other places all over the country returned to their parents' homes. There is also a theory that when these apprentices returned to their hometowns, they made yokan, which they then brought back to the masters and clerks they were serving as a souvenir, and it was received with joy. There are various other theories as well, such as the fact that kneading is also called “decchiru” in confectionery store terminology and the process of kneading red bean paste and wheat flour together led to it being called “decchi-yokan.” In addition, apprentices served merchant families with the goal of becoming merchants themselves in the future. In 1998, this specialty of Shiga Prefecture, decchi-yokan, was selected as a “property of Shiga's food culture,” an intangible folk cultural property of Shiga Prefecture.