Let’s eat Mitarashi Dango

In Japan, there are plenty of sweets for the starved Japanese. However, the traditional sweets are much different from the ones in the West and tend to be made from rice, soy, beans… You’ll hardly find any chocolate. These are mainly natural ingredients that aren’t all that sweet tasting by themselves, but they make them that way using traditional recipes. One of such sweets is a well-known dango. Yesterday I picked one up at a local supermarket here. Technically speaking, this particular type of dango is called mitarashi dango (みたらしだんご) and is the most common type of this low-calorie sweet. It’s sold pretty much everywhere, in supermarkets, convenience stores, on festivals and events. You can even find dango stands on the streets. Dango is made of 4 soft balls (from rice flour) on a stick, covered with sweet soy sauce. It’s pretty cheap, costs on average 80 – 100 yen. As you can see on the photo, this thing is quite sticky because of the sauce. People eat the dango balls one by one. Thus, the biggest challenge is to eat the last 4th ball without pricking yourself in the throat with the sharp stick! Anyhow, there are also other types of dango, such as green tea dango, sakura (cherry blossom) dango, and some others.