gochika

Remember the Osaka book? Well, when I saw the photo of the candied fruits and veggies I immediately thought of Shung Chong Yuein, the sweet shop which unfortunately no longer exists in Hawaii's Chinatown.

Last year when I was home, I visited Chinatown with Nate and he took me to his cousin's shop who was selling tong guo, the candied fruits and veggies for Chinese New Year.

For me, even though I'm not Chinese, it just isn't Chinese New Year unless I eat some tong guo.

So, I wanted to get the candied fruits and veggies from the book. Of course I had never tried it, but it looked similar.

Apparently, Tourindo, the makers of this candy, started making them in 1929, as a way to showcase the fresh fruits and veggies from the area.

They originally had five different fruits and veggies which ranged in five different colors, green from the butterbur, white from the lotus root, red from the carrot, yellow from the kumquat and black from the fig. Apparently these colors symbolized the wisdom one received from the various fruits and vegetables.

The name of the product is gochika (go = 5, chi = wisdom, ka = fruit or vegetable). When you bite into it, it is quite sweet, but the flavor of the fruit or vegetable shines through.

The set that I bought had 9 different items for 1260 yen (about US$12.60), shoga (ginger), kinkan (kumquat), ninjin (carrot), renkon (lotus root), fuki (butterbur), orange peel, yonashi (pear), gobo (burdock) & ichijiku (fig).

Apparently throughout the year the types of fruits and veggies that are candied changes. They also list grapefruit, eggplant, celery, shiitake, cucumber and many others depending on what they can get.

Even though it was pricey, I'm glad I tried this, with some pu-erh tea, it has started my Chinese New Year off nicely.

Kung Hee Fat Choy!

Tourindo
8-19-1 Yamamoto-cho-minami
Yao, Osaka
Phone: 072.923.0003