“‘... Let’s go. How about Ueno? Let’s go try some of Imozaka’s famous dumplings. Have you ever tried those dumplings? You, too, Mrs. Sneaze, sometime you really ought, if only just once, to try them. They’re beautifully soft and even more beautifully cheap. They serve saké as well.’ Tatara was still babbling away about dumplings when my master, his hat on his head, was ready on the doorstone waiting to leave...

Myself, I need rest. There’s no conceivable reason why I should keep watch upon, still less record, how my master and Tatara behaved at Ueno Park, how many plates of dumplings they consumed, and what other pointless happenings transpired. In any case, I lack the energy to trail along after them. I shall therefore skip all mention of their afternoon doings and, instead, relax.”
(From “Wagahai wa Neko de Aru (I Am a Cat)” by Natsume Soseki)

The sweet rice dumplings that are mentioned in one passage of Natsume Soseki’s “Wagahai wa Neko de Aru (I Am a Cat)” are dumplings made by “Habutae Dango,” which has its main shop in Nippori. With a long history, the first shop was established as “Fujinoki Chaya” at the bottom of Imozaka hill (location of the current main shop) in 1819 (Year 2 of the Bunsei period). Because the rice dumplings sold there were delicate, like “Habutae” (A Japanese fine silk), the trade name of the shop was changed to Habutae.

It is said that the reason for the flat shape of the dumplings is that ordinary people feared eating round dumplings that were offered to the gods. Supposedly, another reason is that it easier to heat dumplings thoroughly if they are flat.

From olden times, dumplings topped with Koshian (smooth sweet azuki bean paste) have a slightly sweet taste that brings out the real flavor of the azuki beans. On the other hand, dumplings “coated with soy sauce twice and grilled twice” are recommended to people who enjoy alcohol for the slightly sweet taste of rice combined with the taste of soy sauce. There is also an anecdote of Okakura Tenshin, known as the father of modern Japanese art, forgetting to go home after becoming intoxicated when he ate these dumplings as a side dish with sake.

Habutae Dango are known to have been a favorite of Masaoka Shiki, a friend of Soseki, and, in his “Gyoga Manroku (Stray Notes While Lying on My Back),” a diary he wrote and bound in his sick bed, he noted “I eat three skewers of dumplings topped with Anko and grilled one coated with soy sauce (This causes trouble).

Shuichi Sawano, the seventh-generation proprietor of Habutae Dango, says, “Although there are no clear records of Soseki visiting the shop, it seems likely that he often did so since the name Habutae Dango appears in his works. It may have been Soseki who told Shiki about Habutae Dango.”

“Wagahai wa Neko de Aru (I Am a Cat)” first appeared in the literary journal “Hototogisu” in January 1905 (Year 38 of the Meiji era), several years after Shiki’s death. It may be that Soseki recalled his dead friend as he wrote.

After studying bacteriology in Germany, Mori Ogai, also active as a military physician, developed an extreme germ phobia. Never eating raw vegetables or fruits, it is said that Ogai was extremely fussy about food.

As such, it seems that Ogai also had a sweet tooth, to the extent that records remain in essays by his children telling how Ogai loved to eat “Manju Chazuke (rice topped with Manju (buns with an Anko filling) with green tea poured over it),” a dish he devised himself.

“He would break the bun into four pieces with his clean hands with white fingernails, place one pieced on the rice and pour green tea over it.”
(From “Bimbo Savarin (Poor Savarin)” by Mari Mori)

“He liked eating sweet things with rice and, while I couldn’t possibly, he used to eat the rice topped with Manju with green tea poured over it.”
(From “Bannen no Chichi “My Father in his Later Years” by Annu Kobori)

With a tendency toward an unbalanced diet, as well as Manju Chazuke, another of Ogai’s favorites was “Ganso Ogura Ice Cream (Original azuki bean ice cream)” sold by the confectioner’s “Kanmidokoro Mitsubachi.”

Unable to bear “a vague insecurity about the future,” Akutagawa Ryunosuke took his own life at the young age of 35 years old. While the works of his later years, which give the impression of morbid fears, an image seemingly at odds with images of sweetness, Akutagawa did find that a certain confection brought him some happiness; “Kuzumochi” sold by “Funabashiya.”

Funabashiya was founded in 1805 (Year 2 of the Bunka period) on the grounds of Kameido Tenjin Shrine. The name of the shop derives from Funabashi in Chiba Prefecture, the home of the Kansuke, the first-generation proprietor. Mochi made at the shop for visitors to the shrine won high acclaim and came to be called “Kuzumochi,” an item that became a specialty of Edo.