New Year Food - Sweet Black Soybeans (Kuromame) Made With Sumikko Gurashi 黒豆とすみっコぐらし

Japanese follows English. 英語の後に日本語が続きます。

What do you think this is?

Not only cawaii but functional! 可愛いだけでなく実用的！

For those who don't know the answer, I'm going to give you a clue! I will make some Japanese traditional food using this 4cm tall cawaii polar bear (yes, it's a bear!) and black soybeans (the photo below).  

A pack of black soybeans♬ 丹波産♬

The answer is......  "An iron ball" in the shape of "Shirokuma (literally polar bear🐻‍❄)," one of the main characters of Sumikko Gurashi (literally "life in the corner"). But you may still not see how this cawaii polar bear is used when making sweet black soybeans...? 

This iron bear is used to make sweet black soybeans or kuromame, i.e., a traditional Japanese New Year food, darker and more shiny⭐ I used rusted nails before, but threw them away (as I usually do😅), so I bought this iron polar bear and have made the special New Year food using this cawaii polar bear. Look at the shiny kuromame in the picture below♬ 

Shiny kuromame or sweet black soybeans🌟 ピカピカ黒豆🌟

You did a great job, "Shirokuma"! しろくまちゃん、よくできました！

2020 is the year of Covid-19, forcing people to stay at home, including myself, but it has given me a chance to not buy but make sweet black soybeans from scratch myself. It took 12 hours, but it's fun making things, anything! I also made onishime, another traditional Japanese New Year food, and will write about it in another post! 

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すみっコぐらし、お聞きになったことぐらいあるのでは？ でもこのしろくまちゃん🐻‍❄を何に使うかはお分かりですか。

鉄玉で～す！今年はステイホームなので黒豆を煮ることにしました。でも以前使っていたさびくぎを捨ててしまっていた｡｡｡ ということで、この「すみっコぐらし鉄玉」で黒豆ピカピカにしました😊！  砂糖は少な目。とってもおいしいです。お煮しめも作りました。別の記事に書きま～す！

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