🍚 Dengara (Leaf Wrapped Rice Cake)

"Dengara" is a traditional confection, wrapping sweet bean paste-filled rice cakes in magnolia leaves. In the villages of Higashiyoshino and Kawakami, there is a custom of making chimaki (rice dumplings) and "dengara" during the Boys' Festival. Both are created with the wish for a boy's success, prosperity of descendants, and safe growth. The shapes of these confections are said to symbolize boys. In Kawakami, surrounded by mountains on all sides, there are no rice paddies to cultivate rice. Instead, they plant miscellaneous grains like corn and millet as a substitute and valuable food source. In June, when the temperature is lower than in the Nara Basin, the new leaves of magnolia can be harvested. Using branches with leaves attached, each leaf is used to wrap a rice cake with sweet bean paste, resulting in a shape where multiple wrapped bags hang from a single branch. This method ensures good airflow around each rice cake, contributing to their use as preserved food.