When schools break up for summer holiday, it is the signal that lots of local festivals are ready to start all around in Japan. Many stalls appear in a square that sell food or goods to the people visiting. There are some stalls for offering games too and ‘Kingyo-sukui’ is the one of them. ‘Kingyo’ means Goldfish and ‘Sukui’ is a noun form of a verb to-scoop in Japanese. So what does ‘Scooping-Goldfish’ mean?

Children enjoying ‘Kingyo-sukui’

On the Kingyo-sukui stall they bring a pond with many small Goldfish. The customers pay to get a small ladle which is made of paper and can keep scooping goldfish until the paper tears up and it is no longer possible to scoop up any fish. That is the time that game is over! At the end of the game you can take the goldfish home you scooped. I have to say I was very good at Kingyo-sukui when I was a child. I could get about 20 goldfish easily with just a one paper ladle.

So when I see Goldfish it reminds me of the Summer holiday. It is very nostalgic and that is why I chose Goldfish as the design for the sweet for August.

Goldfish

Although the fish is called Goldfish, the main colour of them is Red, bright red so the Goldfish on my sweet is also Red.

This is a type of Japanese sweet which is made of mainly white beans and sugar and a little bit of rice powder.

The number of ingredients for making this traditional Japanese sweet is so limited but it is such a versatile sweet.

The centre of this sweet is sweet Azuki bean paste.

The sweet is free from Gluten, Egg, Dairy and Oil.

This sweet is served at Wasoukan Café (Notting Hill, London) until the 20th of August.