Sugar Savvy

It seems like eating seasonally is all the rage these days. Sure, it’s easy to eat peas in Spring and parsnips in Winter, but what about candy? I know, I know, in America there’s always the egg-shaped chocolates at Easter, and the same chocolates packaged like pumpkins at Halloween, but such “limited-edition” candy seems, to me, centered more on holidays than the season (although, of course, the holidays do occur in particular seasons, with eggs and pumpkins symbolic of Spring and Fall respectively…). The point I’m attempting to get to, via a rather circuitous route, is that for seasonal candy, the best place seems to be Japan.

In the land of the rising sun, you can munch on Sakura Blossom KitKats in Spring, dip into a plethora of apple candy during apple season and, my personal favorite, indulge in chestnut confectionary during Fall/Winter. Luckily, I have a brother currently teaching English in Japan, with the result being surprise packages filled to the brim with sugary (and admittedly also savory) delights. Unfortunately, the seasonality of the candy means that he can’t always send more of what I particularly like…

And so, I present to you Chestnut Dessert Pocky. As you can see, this isn’t your ordinary pocky. No tiny sticks with thin coatings here, but rather three hefty (well, relatively) cookie sticks with a layer of white confectionary (I hesitate to say white chocolate as I can’t read Japanese and therefore do not know what the ingredients are) finished with a substantial drizzle of chestnut confectionary on top.

Now, these certainly don’t have the strongest knock-your-socks-off chestnut flavor. For that, go to the ground floor of the Kyoto Station department store and get the Mont Blanc d’Or or Mont Blanc d’Argent from one of the patisserie shops there. Possibly the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. These pocky, however, are fun, sweet, and taste enough like chestnut to make me happy. Plus, the double coating is quite thick, so you can nibble away quite happily for a little while if you’re more into prolonging than gobbling. But that, of course, is personal preference.