2021/12/01～04dinner晩御飯【The story of Hanpen】【はんぺんの話】

12/01dinner晩御飯

Steamed rice with mussels, radish leaves marinated, simmered taro, pork belly radish, omelette, hanpen

ムール貝入り炊き込みご飯、だいこんの葉の和え物、里芋の煮物、豚バラ大根、玉子焼き、はんぺん

Hanpen is this white object↓

はんぺんはこちらの白い物体↓

Hankata, hanben, and hanpei are a type of boiled kamaboko that is made by mixing ingredients such as yam with minced fish meat and adding a lot of air bubbles to it. It is a fish paste product with regional characteristics. There are floating hanpen from Tokyo and Choshi, black hanpen from Shizuoka, and anpei from Osaka, all with different characteristics. When we simply say “hanpen”, we generally mean floating hanpen. Wikipedia

半片・半弁・半平は、魚肉のすり身に山芋などの材料を混ぜて気泡をたくさん含ませた茹で蒲鉾の一種。地域性のある魚肉練り製品で、東京や銚子などの浮きはんぺん、静岡の黒はんぺん、大阪などのあんぺいがあり特徴が異なる。単に「はんぺん」というときは一般的には浮きはんぺんのことをいう。ウィキペディア

The texture and appearance of hanpen is almost marshmallow! ! However, it has very little sweetness and is slightly salty. You can eat it as it is, but it tastes even better if you lightly grill it. Marshmallows are mostly made of sugar, but hanpen is mostly fish meat, so it’s nutritious and very healthy.

はんぺんの食感や見た目はほぼマシュマロ！！しかし甘味は限りなく少なく、ほんのりしょっぱい。そのままでも食べられるけれど、ほんのり焼くとなお美味しく食べられます。マシュマロはほぼ砂糖で出来ていますがはんぺんはほぼ魚肉なので栄養満点かつとってもヘルシーです。

By the way, in Japan, there is a custom to eat mochi on New Year’s Day, and there is an annual social problem that the elderly and children eat mochi and get stuck in their throats, and in the worst case they die. I think it would be nice to use this hanpen instead of mochi for kumatamo.

ところで、日本では正月に餅を食べる習慣があり、お年寄りやお子さんも食べて喉に詰まって最悪亡くなってしまうという毎年恒例の社会問題を抱えています。クマタモは餅の代わりにこのはんぺんを代用するといいんじゃないかなーと思います。