🍱 Misogi Dango

A traditional confectionery in Hashima City, dumplings made of rice flour dough and filled with sweet bean paste are skewered, dipped in a sauce made of miso paste and sugar, and baked. Around the beginning of the Showa period (1926-1989), the owner of a confectionery store in Hashima City developed and began selling "Miso Tsuke Dango," a baked Mitarashi dumpling filled with red bean paste and dipped in miso paste. Later, the second generation of the store owner learned the origin of the "Misogi ritual" at the Hakken Shrine, a shrine in Takehana, and renamed the dumpling "Misogi Dango" by combining the ritual and "Misotsuke Dango," and made and sold a sign saying, "If you eat this dango on June 30, during the Misogi ritual, you will be rid of the first half of the year and live the remaining six months in good health." The dumplings were then sold.