Japanese sweets in the form of long blocks (e.g. yokan, uiro)(saomono)
Edo-period herbal medicine (used as an antitussive and a breath freshener)sweet bean jelly
The name refers to long, thin, stick-shaped Japanese confections such as yokan (sweet jelly) and uiro (sweetened soybean flour). The origin of the word “yokan” is said to have come from the name of the mold used to make yokan, which is called “fune” in Japanese, and is used for the mold to be poured and hardened. The original way to count them was to say “一棹” or “二棹”, but nowadays it is more common to count them as “一本” or “一個”. There is a technical beauty unique to the zao-mono, such as patterns or seasonal scenes on the cross section of the zao-mono.
