io8 AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 



the Tofu, a board is laid on top, and the Tofu pressed out with 

 a moderate weight of stones. Finally, the soft greyish mass is 

 cut into tablets with broad latten knives, and put away under 

 water. In summer this suffices only for a short time. To be kept 

 longer, it is put up in Shoyu, or pickled, etc. 



Kori-tofu, frozen or ice-Tofu, is the spongy, horn-like substance 

 that remains when common Tofu is allowed to freeze and then 

 thawed and dried in the sun, thus getting rid of most of its water. 

 By Yuba is meant a third preparation, consisting of brownish, tough 

 skins, made by boiling the dissolved legumine of the Tofu-process, 

 with the addition of some wood-ashes, and then taking away in 

 succession the scums that rise. 



9. Undon, maccaroni, and Somen, vermicelli. As with us, they 

 are made of flour, but they do not form an important article of the 

 people's diet. 



10. Fu is a remarkable product of the baker, which can hardly 

 be called bread, being quite different in preparation and use. It is 

 made from flour, which is treated much as in making vermicelli, 

 though an inferior sort is used, a kind of wheat groats. Two parts 

 of this are kneaded thoroughly with salt and water. The dough 

 is then washed with water to cleanse it from bran and salt, and 

 after the addition of two parts of Mochi-gome meal (cake-rice or 

 glutinous rice), again kneaded vigorously. The result is an extra- 

 ordinarily tough, elastic dough, which is repeatedly cut through and 

 worked, so as to get rid of the water it contains. It is finally made 

 into cylindrical forms two feet long, baked, and sold as Fu, cut up 

 in small sheets. It is softened with warm water and cooked with 

 other articles of food. 



11. Sembei (pronounced Sembe), an unleavened cake from the 

 meal of glutinous rice or wheat, with the addition of sugar and 

 other ingredients, and differing in- taste accordingly, often recalls 

 the unleavened Passover bread of the Jews in flavour and appear- 

 ance. It is offered for sale, as a rule, in thin cakes, baked to a 

 light-brown, or in the form of small rings. Those who sell these — 

 mostly boys — go through the streets with the cry, " Sembei 

 kawa-naika .? " (" Won't you buy any Sembd } ") or " Sembei iri 

 masenka } " (" Don't you want any Sembe ? ") 



12. Ame-no-mochi. According to an old well-known proverb, 

 "there's no accounting for tastes." This is true also of the way 

 in which the Japanese, to some extent, use the meal of wheat, 

 buckwheat, and rice. While never exactly taking to our pastry, 

 though given ample opportunity to become acquainted with it 

 through the Portuguese and Dutch, they look upon certain un- 

 leavened and unbaked preparations of dough quite as delicacies, 

 especially when filled with a mixture of bean-meal (Adzuki) and 

 sugar. At the head of the list stand cakes from the elastic dough 

 of the glutinous rice (Mochi-gome), particularly those called Ame- 

 no-mochi. The small dough-cakes with this name, about the 



