This begins in the food shortages of the late 1940s. Children were using flour loosened with water to write characters on a hot iron plate, partly as play and partly as a way of being taught to read. Moji-yaki, character-grilling, is what they called it. Moji slurred into monja over time and the name simply stuck.

The method has a shape to it. The solid ingredients are arranged on the plate into a ring, a doughnut, a dote, and then the thin batter is poured into the middle of it. Then you work from the outside in, scraping small amounts with a little spatula, pressing them against the metal until they scorch, and eating directly off the spatula.

Tsukishima, where it is concentrated, is reclaimed land, created in 1892 by filling in the mouth of the Sumida river. It became industrial, filled with tenement rows for workers, and the back alleys filled in turn with sweet shops for their children. Those shops are where monja was sold, for coins, to children on their way home.

Fifty-four shops in Tsukishima now belong to a monja trade association. What began as a way of amusing children with a spoonful of flour and water now has a governing body and a membership list.