Sugarcane reached Awa, the old name for Tokushima, in the Kansei years at the end of the eighteenth century. From it came awa wasanbon, the fine-grained local sugar, and this steamed cake is said to have been made to celebrate that sugar being finished. The occasion was the sugar itself, not the cake.

It is built from adzuki bean paste, rice flours both regular and glutinous, salt, and the wasanbon. The mixture is poured into a mold and steamed. The result slices cleanly and does not stick to the teeth, which is a specific and underrated virtue in a sweet made mostly of rice.

The day for eating it was the third of the third month by the old calendar. Some households set it on the doll display for the girls' festival. Through the middle of the twentieth century there was another custom attached to it: children were given a yusanbako, a small stacked lacquer box, packed with rolled sushi, simmered vegetables, colored kanten jelly, and a piece of this.

Then they went off into the hills or down to the sea for the day. I suspect that box will stay with me longer than the taste of the cake did. A sweet that exists to mark a day is really a piece of the day, carried in a container designed to be opened outdoors.