Wagashi Masterclass with Eijun Mistubori
Back at the end of October 2023, I had the opportunity to take a 3 day workshop held by my local cooking studio with noted wagashi master, Eijun Mitsubori.
It was a really amazing experience, and I originally wasn't going to do it! I had talked myself out of it when the class was first announced since the price point was a little high. But at the last minute, the studio owner offered me a discount since I'm a regular student at his other classes, and I scrambled to make it happen. I'm just a total sucker for a discount.
But I will say that it was absolutely worth it – I got a great deal but I would've happily paid full price! I'm only now getting to writing the blog post and editing the photos, but I wish I had the time/brainspace earlier since I'm sure I've forgotten a lot.
The wagashi we made over the 3 days is something called kougeigashi or imitation wagashi. That's because it looks like something else. Our class made wagashi that looks like osechi ryori – a traditional new years “bento” or food set. So maybe I'm actually only slightly late for this blog post? Haha.
There were only 3 of us in the course, so it was a very intimate setting. And it was actually really interesting language-wise for me – sensei's interpreter only knew Mandarin and Japanese! The studio owner then re-interpreted it into English (or sometimes Cantonese). One of the other students knew Mandarin and some English, and the other one knew Cantonese, English, and some Mandarin. Then there's me who knows English, some Cantonese, and some Japanese, haha. I actually had a lot of fun seeing how the Japanese got transformed through so much interpretation!
Plus, I got to do some Japanese practice! I understood probably 60-70% of what he said during the course, since luckily he didn't use super complicated grammar. I learned a lot of obscure vocab (when will I use wagashi terms in real life? lol) and managed to hold a few simple conversations with sensei. And at some points, I even did the translation back into Japanese to relay comments from the others to him! One conversation I remember having was about how salmon isn't a traditional sushi item, but how they do have salmonids in Japan in the mountains haha.
Actually, on the third day of the course, I was walking to the studio and ran into sensei and his translator, who were also walking over. We had a conversation about the weather, as one must do in Canada when outside, lol.
We started off day 1 with an introduction to sensei and his wagashi. Once that was done, we got right into it, starting with first with the easiest parts. The lotus root, bamboo shoots, edamame, shiitake, and burdock were all made of nerikiri. We also made the datemaki, scallops, and uni out of nerikiri! Sensei made a single broccoli as well haha.
While all of us students had experience working with nerikiri before, it was interesting to see the ways he showed us to mimic things. We even fried the burdock to get it to be the right colour! The uni was really cool since it wasn't on the original plan but he was just like, “y'all wanna learn how to make uni?” (my own liberal translation haha).
Day 2 was a really long one – Sensei was even like, “we might be here for a while.” We worked on the shrimp shells, which were made out of anpei. Anpei had this texture and workability that made it good for the shells and antennae and leg parts! Once we finished forming them, we let them dry so we could work on them more.
We also made blocks of layered kanten for the salmon and tuna sashimi as well as a thin layer of kanten for the squid sashimi. The kamaboko was made out of awayukikan, and the decorative carrots out of kanten. I didn't realize it until after I'd left the studio for the day, but awayukikan is like the wagashi version of marshmallows!
There is just so much work involved in making a realistic imitation, lol.
When Keelan picked me up, he also brought Koharu, and people thought she was adorable.
The final day was focusing on the finishing touches. We made the ikura, formed the shrimp bodies, painted the shrimps, cut the sashimi, and generally made the pieces look “nice”. And that's in addition to assembling everything!
Shrimp bodies, by the way, were made of uiro – it had the transparency that mimics a real shrimp's flesh. And we piped kanten for the ikura into individual corn starch holes! I was joking with the studio owner that I was expecting to do some molecular gastronomy with spherification in sodium alginate, and he was like, “then it wouldn't be wagashi!” But then sensei said that he did, in fact, make ikura with spherification on TV once because it was faster and looks more impressive on TV!
The kanten for the sashimi was such a pain to cut because we didn't get great adherence between our layers. I was like, “if I were a sushi apprentice, I would've been kicked out already...” lol. There was so much kanten waste because of poorly cut sashimi pieces!
Anyway, at the end of the day, I did manage to make a pretty good looking wagashi osechi ryori. Some other finishing touches we did included making thin leaves from nerikiri, brushing kanten onto pieces to give them a gloss, and building up some height in the boxes with waste pieces and anko haha. I'm actually really proud of my maple leaf shaped wasabi piece! It's definitely not “real” wasabi but it looks enough like a real piece of fake wasabi haha.
I do have a few more pictures in my gallery but most of the photos I took were actually more process-based so I didn't bother editing them. I might add to the gallery later but these were kind of the “best” shots haha.
I had a really good time at the class, and I really hope sensei comes back to Canada again! And I feel really lucky that I live so close to a cooking studio that's willing to bring such a famous wagashi master over to teach us, who was so nice and personable. When I was leaving the studio with my wrapped up box of sweets, as I was saying bye to sensei, he told me, “make sure your dog doesn't eat your wagashi!”
Next time he comes to Canada, I'll be more prepared and won't sign up at the very last minute hahaha.