Sculptured candy 飴細工 blown candy 吹き飴 In a childhood, I watched person who changed round starch syrup in a twinkling. The hand of the person looked like a magic hand. 子供の頃、白っぽい水飴を瞬く間にいろいろな形に変えたおじさんを見ました。子供ながら、おじさんの手が魔法の手に見えました。 Amezaiku is a traditional Japanese folk art of sculpting candy into a variety of shapes as animals and other characters. It is said that even in Japan, there may be only handful people still practice this hundreds-year-old art form. Sculpting involves many steps. First, glutinous starch syrup is boiledCandy until it becomes dough-like and transparent. When its time, the material is heated over charcoal, making the candy very pliable. Then the material is divided into small portions and pulled and kneaded. Contact with the air during this process produces a pure-white color. The animal shapes must be formed quickly, using tiny scissors and fingers, at the tip of a chopstick. The artist pinches, pulls and bends the material creating an animal shape, be it bird, horse or dragon. Originally, amezaiku artisans used only a small amount of candy on the end of a reed stem, and enlarged and shaped it by blowing in air, similar to glass-blowing.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 00:18:54 +0000