Momiji tenpura sweets

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Maple leaves tempura (momiji tenpura)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Autumn
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation


momiji tenpura もみじ天ぷら/ 紅葉の天ぷら
tempura from maple leaves

A sweet speciality of the town of Mino 箕面 near Osaka. The Maple Park has a famous waterfall and 12 different types of momiji with 5300 trees.
The batter is prepared with sugar and sesame, so it tasts like a sweet. The oil for frying should be natane abura, rapeseed oil.
The leaves of a special kind of maple are pickled for one year in salt to make them tasty.
The momiji maple tree variety is called "ichigyooji 一行寺".
ogurayama ichigyoji, Acer palmatum , with leaves turning bright red.




Here is the legend about these sweets:
More than 1300 years ago. En no Gyooja 役行者, the famous ascetic, was practising austerities at Mount Minosan. He was enchanted by the read leaves of the trees of Mino Waterfall and fried them in the rapeseed oil of his lamp.

In memory of this scene, locals make this sweet tempura and give it to visitors.
. . . CLICK here for Photos !
Tempura von roten Ahornblättern




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Minoyama Ryuuan-Ji　箕面山瀧安寺
Temple Ryuanji at Mount Minoyama
Mino Temple 箕面寺

The founder of this temple is En no Gyoja 役行者（えんのぎょうじゃ＝役小角/えんのおづぬ）.
It is a place of ascetic practises for Shugendo. The waterfall Mino no Taki 箕面の滝 is especially famous in autumn with the red maple leaves.

When En no Gyoja pracises austerities at Mount Katsuragi, he had a vision of "a mountain sending out light" in the north, so he went to look for it and found the impressive waterfall sending out light, or like a dragon. So he build a temple there and venerated Benzaiten 弁財天, the Deity of Water. Ryuuanji means "Dragon Peace Temple".

He practised for a long time in this area and attained supernatural powers here.




Meiji no Mori
Mino Quasi-national Park (Mino Waterfall)

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. Minoo no tomi 箕面の富 　（みのおのとみ）
lottery at Minoo 　
Minoo san Benzaiten mairi 箕面山弁財天参（みのおさんべんざいてんまいり）/ 辨財天
Visiting Benten at Mount Minoo
and more BENTEN kigo



Daruam Museum : En no Gyoja


Maple leaves, red autumn leaves (momiji)
kigo for haiku


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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU




ダンス友もみじ天ぷら銘菓なり
dansutomo momiji tenpura meika nari

friends from dancing -
maple leaves tempura,
famous sweets indeed

source : korotaro.shashin-haiku.jp 薫子

We can imagine her friends from a flamenco dance group, eating these sweets together after a trip to the area.


. WKD : Red autumn leaves, red leaves (momiji) .



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Related words

Dishes from Osaka
Speisen aus der Stadtpräfektur Osaka


***** WAGASHI ... Sweets SAIJIKI

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