Japanese Sweets - Carp Streamer Sweets

On April 20, I went to the Ginza Mitsukoshi Department Store in Tokyo and bought carp streamer shaped sweets. If you can't imagine what it's like, please see the photo. I make it a rule to buy seasonal sweets and so, when finding these cute wagashi at Tsuruya Yoshinobu, I had no hesitation to buy one.  

May 5 is the Children's Day and we put koinobori (meaning carp streamers), i.e., carp-shaped windsocks, in a garden. It is difficult to put real ones in Tokyo, but we have smaller ones for indoor decoration. The origin of the tradition is unclear, but this date used to be for only boys and still is mainly for boys. (Girls have another day March 3 [Doll's Festival Day], though it's not a national holiday.)

The sweet, named "satsuki bare (fine day in May)," is white bean paste and gyuhi (i.e., sweet mochi) wrapped with a skin made from flour, eggs, water, etc. The taste of beans is a little gentler because of the use of white, not red beans for the paste. Also, as I didn't know mochi was used, the chewy and gummy mochi texture gave me a happy surprise. You can get this sweet for only a limited period (mid April to May 5). Its cute appearance, taste of white bean paste, and mochi chewy texture deserves 3.5 stars. I deducted 0.5 star because it had no seasonal flavor, such as mugwort, cherry or oak, but it's not to blame for it. The seasonal sweet is perfect in itself.