Two horse chestnut leaves are laid together, and a mixture of glutinous rice, azuki beans, and millet is set on them. The parcel is tied up with straw, carefully, and deliberately not too tight. Then it goes into a pot and boils for about forty-five minutes.

The name is said to be a contraction of tsutsumikko, which means something like little bundle, worn down over generations of saying it.

Its origin is military, which is not what you expect of a sweet. Warriors carried grain wrapped in tochi leaves onto campaign and steamed it over a fire before eating. Farming households then took it up for exactly the same reasons that soldiers had. It went out to the fields as lunch, it was handed to children as a snack, and it kept without any trouble.

The timing is set by the leaves rather than the calendar. It is made in the new green of spring, when someone climbs the hill behind the house and picks tochi leaves while they are still fresh enough to wrap with. That falls around the fifth-month festival, and that is when it is eaten. It belongs to the Chichibu district, and to Ogano in particular. The recipe does not begin in a kitchen. It begins on a hillside, with somebody deciding that the leaves are ready.