‘Now we leave it for a while to steep in the syrup. After that we’ll scoop it out with a spatula and spread it on here.’
‘What?’
‘The paste you just blended.’
Sentaro looked confused.
Tokue took the spatula from him. ‘Let’s have a little rest, shall we, boss?’
7
Tokue told Sentaro to write down all the steps they had just covered while the paste was steeping in the syrup.
‘I can remember from watching,’ he answered.
But when she challenged him to tell her from the beginning, he reluctantly pulled out a notebook.
‘You’re full of confidence, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘No, not really.’
‘Why don’t you take notes then? It’s the fine points that matter with confectionery. How can you remember anything if you don’t write it down?’
‘Err…’
Abashed, Sentaro made notes as Tokue explained it all again, starting with the soaking stage.
‘Where did you learn to do this?’ he asked.
‘It’s only because I’ve been doing it so long.’
‘Fifty years, right?’
‘You must get a lot of customers my age.’
Sentaro shook his head.
‘The school girls are pretty rowdy. I sometimes get fed up with their noise.’
A faint flush entered Tokue’s cheeks. ‘Ah…Girls that age,’ she said, ‘it’s only natural they get excited. They could be doing worse things.’
‘I only put up with it because they’re customers.’
‘I can meet them, can’t I?’
Sentaro couldn’t bring himself to say no, even though he had not changed his mind about having Tokue leave once they finished making bean paste, specifically so she would not meet the customers. He was determined not to give way on that.
Tokue peered into the pot and stirred the syrup-soaked beans with the wooden spatula. ‘It’s just right.’
She scooped up some bean paste with the spatula and put it directly on the cotton cloth.
‘I didn’t know you had to do this, too,’ Sentaro observed.
‘They’re still sweating, so you need to absorb that. By the time it cools you’ll have some lovely bean paste.’
Steam rose off the paste in the wake of the spatula moving through it. When spread out on the cotton cloth the paste shone and a deep smooth aroma filled the entire kitchen.
‘Now we need to find out if this bean paste will go with your pancakes.’
Sentaro trickled batter from the dora spoon over the hot griddle.
Making the pancakes was the only thing his boss had taught him how to do properly. The batter was a standard mixture of eggs, high-quality sugar and soft cake flour combined in equal measures. Sometimes Sentaro added a little baking soda or sweet mirin cooking sake, or water to adjust the viscosity, but the basic three-equal-parts recipe never changed throughout the year. It was an instinctive and elegantly simple recipe that anybody could make once they got used to it.
Cooking was the hard part. Unlike other similar traditional sweets made with sweet bean paste, Imagawayaki for example, which were cooked in a mould, dorayaki were cooked on a flat griddle, and it was the cook who determined the size and thickness, aiming to produce consistently uniform pancakes by finding the right rhythm and movement. Seasoned cooks always made it look easy, but it was a tricky process for beginners to master. The slightest difference in water-amounts could affect the size, and there was no guarantee that the batter would pour onto the griddle and form a perfect circle in the first place. On top of this, the batter burned very easily if the cook got the timing wrong.
Today, unusually, Sentaro managed to cook all the pancakes to perfection in an evenly round size. Maybe it was the thought of having quality bean paste for the first time, or perhaps it was due to a healthy tension brought about by Tokue’s presence.
They had started work sometime after six and had now been toiling for four and a half hours. With fifteen minutes to go until the shop opened, Sentaro and Tokue sat on the kitchen stools, stretching and rubbing their arms.
They sandwiched the still-warm bean paste between the fluffy, freshly grilled pancakes. For anyone who liked dorayaki, this was a moment of happy anticipation. Sentaro gave a nod of thanks in Tokue’s direction, and then brought the dorayaki to his lips.
The aroma seemed to leap up at him, as if it were alive, racing through his nose to the back of his head. Unlike the ready-made paste, this was the smell of fresh, living beans. It had depth. It had life. A mellow, sweet taste unfurled inside Sentaro’s mouth.
Sentaro was bowled over. He smiled at Tokue and took another bite. Same again. He was knocked out by this flavour. ‘Hmm,’ he murmured, stroking his cheek. ‘This is really something.’
‘What do you think, boss?’
‘Never tasted bean paste like it.’
‘Really?’
‘Finally, a sweet bean paste I can eat.’
‘What?’ Tokue stared at the dorayaki Sentaro held in his hand. Teeth marks were visible. ‘What did you say, boss?’ Her hand, still holding her own partially eaten dorayaki, was frozen in mid-air.
‘Ah, I, err…’
‘Yes?’ Tokue put her dorayaki down on the plate.
‘I almost never eat a whole dorayaki.’
‘You what?’ Tokue’s mouth hung open. ‘How can that be? You make them. Don’t tell me you don’t like them?’
Sentaro hastily shook his head. ‘No, that’s not it. I do eat them, I just don’t have much of a sweet tooth.’
‘Well, I never.’
‘But I can tell that your bean paste is special. I thought so before, but this…Never had anything like it.’
‘Sentaro, let me get this straight. You don’t like sweet food?’ she said, with her eyes glued to his face.
‘It’s not that I don’t like sweet food, more that I can’t eat a whole…err…’
‘My goodness, boss.’ The more Sentaro’s voice trailed away, the louder Tokue’s became. ‘So why are you working in a dorayaki shop?’
‘Well, that’s a good question.’
Tokue stared at him incredulously.
‘Um, it just came about somehow that I ended up working here.’
‘Somehow…?’
‘Well, there were…circumstances.’ Sentaro picked up his still unfinished dorayaki and took another bite. ‘But this…’
‘What? You’re not one to make yourself clear.’
‘I just realized that your bean paste is so good, it makes the pancake seem superfluous. It’s unbalanced.’
Tokue turned to take another bite of her dorayaki and put the rest in her mouth. ‘Well, now that you mention it.’
‘I’m right, aren’t I? This bean paste is so good it’s all you notice. There’s no point using it with these pancakes. If anything, they’re in the way.’
Even as he spoke Sentaro heard a voice screaming in his head: Don’t make any more work for yourself. But the words were already forming. ‘If the pancakes were better, it’d be much better overall, don’t you think?’
‘Can you improve them any?’
‘Maybe. But for now at least we’ll have decent bean paste for the first time ever in Doraharu.’
‘Praise like that won’t change anything.You disappoint me, boss. How can someone who doesn’t like sweet food be running a dorayaki shop?’
‘I told you that’s not what I meant. Look. I ate it all.’ Sentaro brushed his empty hands together, wiping off the crumbs to emphasize his point. ‘I haven’t done that in a long time.’
‘Oh, it really is too bad.’ Tokue shook her head in disbelief.
‘Well, I was more interested in this,’ said Sentaro, lifting his hand up in the motion of pouring sake.
Tokue wrinkled up her nose. ‘You should be running a bar.’
He had no answer to this, and stood up to open the shutters.
8
The sweet bean paste in Doraharu has changed. Sentaro thought about writing an announcement of some kind to put in the shop window, but decided against it in the end, in case customers wondered about the bean paste he had used up to then.
Nevertheless, Sentaro noticed an immediate change from the day he started making bean paste with Tokue. The usually noisy crowd of school girls were strangely quiet.
‘This tastes better, somehow,’ one observed, looking at Sentaro.
Sentaro shrugged this aside with a vague reply about good beans, and didn’t mention Tokue.
Customers who bought takeaway also commented. ‘Have you got a new supplier?’ one said.
When Tokue came next, Sentaro reported this to her. ‘That’s nice,’ she said with a smile, without a word of self-praise for her own role.
‘But sales haven’t improved. If people are going to say good things they could at least buy more,’ Sentaro complained.
‘We should simply be grateful they come at all.’
‘But you don’t get bean paste like this so easily.’
‘Yes, but the world isn’t an easy place…’
‘Yeah, well, I guess so.’
Sentaro held the wooden spatula in his hand while Tokue stood at his side gazing intently at the beans in the bowl, as always.
Tokue consistently turned out excellent bean paste; she never had a bad day. Sentaro had the feeling that it was her posture while she worked that ensured this. She treated the adzuki beans with the greatest of care, always bringing her face up close to them, painstakingly carrying out every step in the process of cooking, and moving her fingers as if there were nothing wrong with them.
When Tokue said she wanted to try beans from other sources, Sentaro got the supplier to deliver Chinese beans from Shandong Province and US beans as well. Both cooked up well in Tokue’s hands; each emitted a deep yet slightly different aroma, and both shone in distinctively different ways. ‘Interesting,’ she pronounced.
Using different beans made the cooking procedure just that little bit more complicated. Sentaro could see that it meant more work ahead, but by now he too had become mesmerized by the whole process. He briefly considered other ideas, like selling dorayaki according to the beans’ place of origin, since it seemed to make such a difference. Or making more money by branching out into other types of Japanese confectionery for which bean paste was the main or only ingredient, such as adzuki bean jelly or kintsuba. The bottom line, however, was that he did not want to make any more work for himself.
Sentaro threw himself doggedly into the unfamiliar work of making bean paste. It was a testing time. Physically tiring, of course, but in addition to that Sentaro was annoyed with himself, he couldn’t quite believe he was actually doing this, considering what his intentions had been all along. But he began to sense that if he applied himself seriously now, adzuki beans might just open a door for him. While one part of him relished the novel sensation, another part was wary. Whatever happened, though, unless he bid farewell to this life constantly chained to the grill, he could not devote his days to writing again. That much was certain.
Whether it was because of these conflicted feelings, or because he was fundamentally not suited for this work, Sentaro was a long way off being able to make consistently good-quality bean paste on the days when Tokue was not there. Just as he thought he had improved, the next batch would scorch, or the beans become sticky and gluey from over-stirring, or dried out from over-evaporation.
Since he had decided not to use commercial bean paste any more, Sentaro had no choice but to mix his own in with Tokue’s when it looked like running out. Whenever Tokue tasted this mixture he felt like a kid back at school again, waiting to receive his test results. She would sit straight-backed and bring a spoonful of the bean paste to her mouth. Then, staring into space, she would say something like, ‘The flavour is struggling a little,’ and move her eyes. That didn’t mean she was rejecting it, however, for she would always add some comment such as, ‘But it’s interesting.’ Tokue was a stickler in the extreme during the process of making the bean paste, but when it came to tasting the results, the opposite if anything was true; she actually seemed to enjoy a variation in quality.
‘I thought I’d have to start over.’
‘But this is better than the bought stuff,’ she commented.
‘Surprisingly.’
‘The beans did their best.’
Once her work was over and Tokue relaxed, her language and outlook became more upbeat. While Sentaro was grateful for this, at the same time it sowed the seeds of trouble for him.
No matter how much he told Tokue that she shouldn’t show herself to the customers, she would always stay in the kitchen for an hour or two after Doraharu opened, and Sentaro weakened. Because of course she had good reason. She was old. And her body was infirm. Over time she came to occupy the chair in the kitchen for a long while after finishing her work. ‘I’m tired,’ she would say, or ‘My back…’ and sit there frozen with the apron on her knees, her mouth hanging open and a blank look on her face. At times like this she seemed too weak even to drink tea. Whenever there was an announcement outside on the public loudspeaker, she would say, ‘What was that?’ since she was hard of hearing at the best of times, and look at Sentaro in inquiry. He could hardly say ‘Go home now,’ even though he wanted to, and so often she was still there when customers began arriving. This is not good, Sentaro always thought.
Tokue at least made a show of trying to stay out of sight, even if she made no move to leave, but if a customer holding a baby happened to appear in front of the window, she would lean out of the shadows, half-showing her face, and cluck, ‘Oh, my, my, my.’ When groups of children appeared, she would say within earshot, ‘Give them a little extra, boss, go on.’ It was only then that Sentaro would be driven to say loudly, in spite of himself, ‘Isn’t it time for you to be leaving?’ Upon which Tokue would open the back door and quietly disappear.
The days became warmer and before long it was midsummer. One afternoon, Sentaro opened the door of the refrigerator and let out a small groan. Though the customers were not exactly forming a queue, there had been an unending stream and Sentaro had gone to replenish the bean paste from the refrigerator, because he was on the verge of running out, only to find there was none left. Unless he made another batch, he couldn’t serve any more customers. To run out of bean paste, during daylight hours at that, was a first for Sentaro.
After apologizing to the waiting customers he went to find the ‘Sold Out’ sign to hang in the window. His late boss had bought the fancy-looking sign, which was hidden from sight among numerous miscellaneous items on the shelf. Not once had it ever been hung out, as far as Sentaro could remember.
Wondering if perhaps they had not prepared enough bean paste, he went over the cooking notes with their detailed amounts. But it was the same as always, plus the rubbish bin next to the grill was almost full to overflowing with broken eggshells as further testament. He hurriedly checked the takings. That day he had sold roughly three hundred dorayaki: a record for him.
There was nothing for it but to close for the day. Sentaro pulled down the shutters and set off along the street now bathed in the rays of the setting sun. He headed straight for the soba-noodle shop and a drink. Though tired, he felt a glow of satisfaction. He had not chosen to do this work because he wanted to; he wanted to be free of it as soon as possible. That’s all he was aiming for. And yet, he felt a sense of achievement from today, as if he’d turned a corner. That’s what puzzled him; this feeling he had of wanting to cheer, along with a sense that things had become somehow complicated. He didn’t know where he stood any more.
What was he going to do from now on? This was a question that required urgent consideration. Sentaro pondered as he poured himself a drink.
Should he be resigned to keep hanging up the ‘Sold Out’ sign, or should he see this as an opportunity and extend business hours into the evening? Whichever course he decided on, Sentaro
felt there was something to be said for either option.
If sales kept improving he could make more money, and that would mean he could increase his debt repayments to the owner. Yet a part of him was still prepared to give it up. It was hard to imagine pushing himself any harder than he was already. He did nothing else all day except make dorayaki. Time would pass doing exactly the same thing over and over.
And yet – Sentaro considered the other option – working morning to night was bound to speed up his release from being chained to the grill. In which case, shouldn’t he do his utmost to work and save money? Isn’t that why the gods had sent him the old lady? He was getting top-class bean paste for rubbish pay – if that wasn’t an opportunity, what was?
‘Is it time?’ he murmured.
His mind spinning drunkenly, Sentaro proceeded to map out a detailed plan. As shopping streets went, Cherry Blossom Street might be down on its heels, but it did get a good flow of human traffic. Peak time was in the evenings, when commuters returning home swelled the ranks of evening shoppers. There were baked-confectionery shops in the city centre that did all their preparation in the daytime and opened from evening until late at night. Why shouldn’t he do the same? A surprising number of office workers and business men and women craved something sweet after an evening out drinking with their colleagues. Clearly it was not smart to shut up shop while it was still light, but if he was going to get new customers then he had to stay open until the evening rush was over, which meant keeping the shop open until at least eight or nine at night…Who would make all the extra bean paste that would require?
This was the wall Sentaro ran up against. He didn’t think it was possible for a 76-year old woman who sat down at the drop of a hat to work any harder than she already was.
Sweet Bean Paste Page 3