Nezuko's Favorite: Konpeitou
It's time for Kimetsu Kitchen, and over-analyzing a tiny lore detail! And by tiny, I mean 1.5cm or smaller.
As already stated in the first fanbook, Tanjiro reminds us the Yuukaku Arc Taisho Secrets that Nezuko's favorite food is humans konpeitou, colorful tiny candies that are made almost entirely out of sugar. They are best known for their signature shape, with a bunch of bumps called "tsuno," that is... horns.
Aha, I see what you did there, Gotouge. So in that light, I'm not going to hold back wherever I see connections to Nezuko. First off, like Nezuko, konpeitou also comes in many fun sizes. Because of how the horns are formed with the candies bumping into each other and dripping onto the biggest protrusions, the candies have fewer and fewer horns as they get bigger.
We'll get into how they are made is a second, but first a brief history. Konpeitou, like castella and tempura, were introduced to Japan in the Sengoku period by the Portuguese missionaries. Warlord Oda Nobunaga was even presented with some earlier versions of this "confeit" that had anise at its core for a refreshing finish. However, after the missionaries were kicked out, they disappeared for a time, until Edo-period townspeople in Nagasaki (with access to trading with the Dutch) developed a pan-fried version, which they named 金平糖 (gold-even-sugar). Konpeitou were a rare treat accessible only the rich and powerful, such has the emperor using it for special occasions, until a new and easier method with rotating frying pans was patented in 1903. This was already 36 years into the Meiji period, and Nezuko would had been a toddler.
The first konpeitou factory opened in 1907 in Osaka, which is when they really took off as a wide-spread treat, including being sent abroad in soldiers' rations. The first ones were not flavored, they were purely made of granular sugar and sugar syrup (a mix of sugar and water, so yay, more sugar!), and they came in four different sizes. However, the first variations came when they made a mix of four basic colors to reflect the seasons: pink for cherry blossoms in spring, green for summer greenery, yellow for the autumn leaves, and white for winter snow.
(The closest example I saw to the colors Nezuko might had had available, don't mind those orange ones.)
Throughout the Taisho period they gradually gave way to more popular sweets like ice cream and chocolates, but when Nezuko was a 12-year-old likely around 1912~1913, these would had been widely available and popular.
So how are they made today? Still mostly in Osaka, there's only about 10 factories in Japan that produce them. But only about 5 in Portugal that do, so no wonder people assume they are a Japanese invention! Although you can still find them as purely sugar-flavored and some cafes likes to use them instead of sugar or sugar cubes, you can find them in a very wide variety of colors and flavors now. Basically, if it can be dissolved into syrup, you can color or flavor konpeitou with it.
Konpeitou starts with granular sugar, turned twice a minute in tilted frying pans that are 180cm across at 75 degress C. Every few minutes it gets coated with a scrap of syrup, which gradually makes the candy grow bigger and bigger. It sounds like a simple process, but it takes a lot of patience and practice to get the precise humidity, temperature, timing, and movement to attain a translucent appearance and smooth texture with a pleasing array of horns.
If there is one character in KnY who is extremely patient and can pour that sort of effort into developing something, it's Nezuko. Konpeitou grow only 1mm per day (so it takes two weeks to make a batch of large konpeitou), but that ongoing, dedicated growth is very auspicious, like... hmm. Like what the asanoha pattern on Nezuko's kimono symbolizes. I've always assumed the vines in Nezuko's demon crest symbolized the same thing.
Alright, now to turn this into a Kimetsu Kitchen blog. If you are in Osaka prefecture, you too can join a very brief konpeitou making class to add the finishing touches to a little batch of mostly-finished konpeitou! You get to choose the flavors and colors, and for extra money, you can even add edible gold flakes or get cute jars to put them in. I got to make two batches, one based on the color and flavor already in the first batch. I was concerned out pink and green might mix, so I went with pink followed by yellow for a nice nod to Zenitsu's efforts in Kimetsu Academy to give her the perfect konpeitou. However, I wound up with a nice shade of peachy orange like her hair, and I'm sure Zenitsu doesn't mind.
I call the flavor "drink bar" because I thought a non-pick flavor like melon would be ironic and I wound up with a mix of melon and cola. It's pretty good.
The base konpeitou was purely sugar flavored and white, but with tiny ladles of syrup with food coloring and flavor added and stirred about ten seconds at a time, the shape also gradually changed as the horns got more pronounced. It really is up to taste how little or how much you want to add, they're very versatile once the basics are formed.
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