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Kompeitoh
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Kompeitoh (Traditional
Japanese Candy with Horns)
I cannot tell you how to
make it, but….
Kompeitoh is a sugar ball of about 1/4 inch diameter with
many horns, and has a history of more than 400 years in Japan. Luis Frois, a
Catholic missionary from Portugal, wrote the oldest record about kompeitoh in
his report to Pope in Rome. According to his report, he brought a glass jar
of kompeitoh as one of the souvenirs to Nobunaga Oda in 1563.
Kompeitoh intrigued Japanese, but it took long time before they learned how
to make it. More than one hundred years later, Saikaku Ihara, a famous writer
in Edo era, wrote about a man who became rich by inventing a method of
manufacturing kompeitoh.
In old days, popy seed or sesami seed was used as a core of kompeitoh. Seeds
were coated with sugar first. Then the horns were grown. In the modern method
of manufacturing kompeitoh, no seed is necessary.
Many Japanese who love Tchaikovsky's ballet music, The Nutcracker
(1891-1892), think kompeitoh was popular in Europe, because a piece of music
in the suite played by a keyboard instrument, celesta (see footnote), is
titled Kompeitoh's Dance in Japanese. This title is a translation made
long time ago from the original title, Dance de la Fee-Dragee in
French. Dragee is sugar-coated almond, and traditionally served at weddings
in Europe. Nothing like Japanese kompeitoh can be found, however, in France
or Russia. To those who know kompeitoh, nonetheless, the music played by a
celesta sounds really like dance of tiny kompeitohs than sugar coated
almonds. This is why Nakata speculates that the composer may have seen
kompeitoh somewhere, possibly on his trip to the United States, and really
meant it but used the word Dragee because kompeitoh was not known in Russia.
For more details about kompeitoh, the book written by Tomoichi Nakata is
recommended (see footnote b). In North America, kompeitoh may be found more
easily in Chinese grocery as "Starlet" than Japanese.
Footnote
a: A keyboard musical instrument invented in Paris, 1886, consisting of steel
bars connected to a keyboard.
b: Tomoichi Nakata is a faculty member in Mathematics at Chukyo University in
Nagoya. His publications include:
- T Nakata. Hello Kompeitoh. Akane-Book
Publishing, 1995 ISBN-251-03902-5
- N Murai, T Nakata. Rounded Spikes of Kompeitoh
and Scaling Relations. Am. J. Physics, 1988
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