Famous Sweet of Kaga, Choseiden and Wasanbon of Awa,加賀の名菓、長生殿と阿波の和三盆(2012.12.26)
Kanazawa(Ishikawa) is a major producer of traditional Japanese sweets, known as Wagashi, alongside Kyoto. The popularity of the tea ceremony gave rise to a variety of confections, including Choseiden, one of the three most famous Rakugan Wagashi in the country.
Other two famous sweets are Koshinoyuki (Nagaoka, Niigata) and Yamakawa (Matsue, Shimane). All the confections have been made from a mixture of Wasanbon, glutinous rice and wheat gluten, as a pressed sugar sweet wth Tree mold. Choseiden is also colored red with red pigment(carthamin) of safflower(Yamagata).
Wasanbon(Awa Sanbon Sugar) was made from sugar cane(Awa, Tokushima). First of all, the sugar cane was pressed , and the liquid obtained was boiled in order to get sweet solid material. Then, the product was covered with cloth, and pressed at least three times on the tray with hand to remove its brown color of molasses, as soon as possible.
Famous Sweet of Kaga,Choseiden(加賀の名菓、長生殿)
(Reference) Famous Sweet of Kaga , Choseiden and Wasanbon of Awa, 加賀(金沢)の名菓、長生殿と阿波(徳島)の和三盆: http://kanazawa-sakurada.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2012/12/post-3853.html.