Yokan: Japanese bean jelly

apanese sweets, wagashi, are an exquisite affair little known abroad. Yokan, or youkan, is a paste of very fine bean flour, custard sugar and agar-agar.

What seems a simple mixture of basic ingredients, in fact, is a fine art. In Japan there are still a lot of artisan shop specialising in hand-made yokan that fetches very high prices among connoisseurs.

Strangely enough, the word yokan means "sheep broth". Originally, leftovers of slaughtered sheep, like bones, joints and ties, were boiled in water to produce gelatine to give yokan its jelly-like texture. That was the deal in China, where it was invented. However, in Buddhist Japan consumption of animal products (except fish and seafood) was banned for many centuries, so here agar-agar was used instead but the old name has stuck.