Banana-monaka

Why Aomori's famous confectionery? Northern banana bean paste

I bought “Banana-monaka” made by “Kasai Seika” in Hirosaki City, Aomori Prefecture. This “Banana-monaka” is made by several confectioners in Aomori Prefecture, and has been a major and well-known snack in Aomori for a long time. Bananas have a strong image as a tropical fruit, and we will introduce the story of why they are so common in Aomori.

For a while after the war in the 1950s, bananas were not widely consumed in Japan as they were very expensive and were not distributed in large quantities. The owner of a confectionery shop in Aomori came up with the idea of making “Banana-monaka” so that his customers could taste the banana he had once tasted in Tokyo.

“Banana-monaka” is a simple snack consisting of a banana-shaped monaka skin filled with white bean paste. Of course, it does not contain banana fruit itself, but the flavor and texture of banana is reproduced in the white bean paste with banana flavoring.

What surprised me when I tried it was that the white bean paste was able to reproduce the texture of banana pulp. As expected, it was not quite like a real banana, but it was hokkuri and sweet, with a strong banana flavor, so it had more of a banana feel than I expected.

Banana bean paste with a high level of perfection and deliciousness. Banana bean paste was born out of longing, but the reason why it is still loved today is because of the extremely high level of perfection of the confection itself. This is the taste of “a delicious banana born in the north”.