At the beginning of a new year with full of happiness, we introduce a product that must be matched with such feeling.
New year is the biggest traditional event for Japanese. We celebrate a new year arrived with family and relatives in general and we wish a happy year by visiting a shrine and share cups of sake etc. We have some icons of New Year, such as traditional decorations, rice cake, new year post cart etc.
If we say in color, "gold" is a color often used for celebration of New Year. It may be same at some other countries. The most gorgeous color is often placed on celebration items.
We found an interesting product with gold and also related to food.
Called "Pakkin Bashi" (ぱっきん箸)
Pakkin Bashi is a pair of chopstick produced by Hakuza (箔座), a gilder from the origin of gold leaf, Kanazawa (金沢), Hokuriku region.
From the package of paper cover with stlipe lines in red, we are not able to find how Pakkin Bashi is different from others.
The unique feature of Pakkin Bashi can be seen on a moment when we split apart a pair of the chopsticks.
It's a very short time and
was too difficult to express it with a photo actually...
When the chopsticks were splitted,
small pieces of gold foil came down from the chopsticks.
We saw the remain sticked on a stick end.
These pieces of gold foil are "edible", no harm. Gold foil is traditionally used to decorate food and sake (Japanese alcohol) for celebratory feast. By gilders' sophisticated technique, thin and tiny pieces are put on food or drink, additing brilliant flavor.
In same way, Pakkin Bashi brings us a joyful moment by splitted apart the chopsticks and decorating food before us with gold foil come down.
It's very delicate presentation with tiny pieces.
As for the name, "Pakkin Bashi" does sound strange? You may wonder how it comes from.
"Pakkin" implies the sound made when we split apart a pair of chopsticks. And it also comes from a word "gold leaf" in Japanese, "hakukin (箔金)". Bashi is same with hashi (箸, chopsticks). We could not imagine such elegante moment of using the chopsticks from the name with amusing sound.
Pakkin Bashi is available at Hakuza boutique Nihonbashi, Tokyo as well as Hakuza flagship boutique and craft studio in Kanazawa.
It will be good to celebrate your special moment with Japanese traditional gold foil decoration on food.
Hakuza official website: http://www.hakuza.co.jp/english
Hakuza Nihonbashi, Tokyo
Address: Coredo Muromachi 1st floor, 2-2-1 Nihonbashimuromachi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
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Hakuza Honten (flagship store), Kanazawa
Address: 1-30-4 Moriyama, Kanazawa-city, Ishikawa prefecture
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