Castella and Higashi (?): Justin & Nana Eat Weird Stuff for Your Entertainment

A while back, Nana and I spent a fascinating weekend in Nagasaki (previous posts here, here, and here). For a long time, Nagasaki was Japan's gateway to the West. In fact, for centuries it was Japan's only source of sugar, shipped in from Portugese and later Dutch trading posts in Southeast Asia. Even today, Nagasaki is home to several popular Japanese treats that harken back to the city's cosmopolitan past.

The best known of these is probably castella, a mild sponge cake based on an old Portugese recipe named after the Spanish kingdom of Castille. 

Classic variety in the foreground, green tea variety in the back.

Though foreign in origin, the taste of modern castella is very Japanese: delicate and not very sweet, with as much emphasis on texture as on flavor.

Nana is a fan.

This second treat, purchased from the same shop, is something altogether different: a dry, pressed mixture of  sugar and rice flour, called higashi (I think).

This one was even milder in flavor and more focused on texture: once bitten, the thing would crumble into a fine powder in your mouth, then dissolve into a thin mochi-like goo. Odd, but not unpleasant.

Back in the day, both of these treats, along with any sweets not based on red bean, were extremely expensive, given the scarcity of sugar, and entirely dependent on the Dejima trade. These days, imported sugar is abundant, and while the Japanese palate tends towards less-sweet sweets as a whole, those sweets have become affordable snacks.

Today's Lesson

カステラは　好き　です。

kasutera-wa suki desu.

Castella-(subject) pleasing is.

I like Castella.

Bonus Lesson: To sound more Japanese, you barely pronounce the "u" in "su," so that "suki desu" sounds more like "ski dess."

Bonus Bonus Lesson: Note how "castella," like most loan words, is written in katakana ( カタカナ ), the more "angular" of the two Japanese phonetic scripts - not hiragana ( ひらがな ), the more flowing script used for native Japanese words.