16 Ways To Make Your Life Better With Dango
posted by John Spacey, May 18, 2014Dango are sweet Japanese rice dumplings that have a chewy texture. They're a classic Japanese dessert that's available in endless varieties. Dango are a familiar food in Japan that play a role in a number of traditions.
There are several ways to make your life better with dango:
1. Toast them like marshmallows
Dango can be grilled over coals or toasted over an open fire just like marshmallows.
2. Eat them with care
Mitarashi Dango are an old fashioned dessert of dango on a stick covered in a thick, glassy sauce of shoyu, sugar and starch. The sauce is a dangerous mix of extremely sticky and slightly drippy. Eat them with care by tilting your head back a little.
3. Try a new hairstyle
A hairstyle with double or pigtail buns is commonly called "odango" in Japanese.
4. Honor dango with your grammar
The Japanese language gives food a lot of respect. Food related words are often prefixed with "o" to indicate respect (honorific speech). This has to do with the sense that food is key to life. Some food related nouns are almost always prefixed with "o". Other food related nouns aren't. If you learn the Japanese language you eventually gain a sense of which is which. Dango is one of those words that is almost always prefixed with "o". As a rule, its better to say "odango" than "dango." It sounds better in Japanese.
5. Add Western toppings
Dango are included in a number of common Japanese desserts. In many cases, such desserts include western elements such as ice cream and whipped cream.
6. Make them cute
Grill cute faces into the front of your dango.
7. Bury them in toasted soy flour
Soy flour is known as kinako in Japanese. It has a powdered sugar taste (only not quite as sweet). Kinako is a common topping for dango that's often applied generously.
8. Take some home
Many regions of Japan have local variations of Dango that are available in convenient souvenir packs. Check out the Denpun Dango (made with potato flour) of Hokkaido or Kibi Dango (made with millet flour) of Okayama.
9. Feed yourself at a Japanese festival
Dango are a matsuri favorite.
10. Bribe animals to help you fight demons
Momotaro (literally: Peach Boy) is a mythical Japanese hero. In one well known tale he bribes three talking animals in the forest with dango to help him fight some demons.
11. Try them with tea
Dango go well with green tea. This combination is an old fashioned classic. A snack of dango and green tea is the type of thing that is served at Japanese retirement homes or ryokan. 
12. Take dango over flowers
When Spring first arrives in Japan the Sakura trees bloom and everyone enjoys flower viewing parties (hanami) under the trees.There's a well known Japanese proverb that goes "dango over flowers" (Hana yori dango). It means that people enjoy the food and drink more than the flowers. The flowers are essentially an excuse for a party.As the proverb implies, dango are a popular hanami food. This has inspired seasonal Hanami Dango for the flower viewing season.Hanami Dango are white, pink and green. As you might guess, the pink dango are flavored with sakura petals. The green dango are yomogi or green tea flavored. The white dango are typically unflavored.
13. Dance the dango
The humble dango has inspired a number of songs and dances over the years in Japan. These songs are inevitably based on Tango music due to the fact that "dango" and "tango" rhyme.A Tango song called "Dango San Kyodai" (Three Dango Brothers) spent three weeks at the number one position of the Japanese music charts and sold more than 1 million copies in 1989. Most Japanese people still know this song today.The dango has also inspired a number of traditional Japanese dances.
14. Try them with red beans
Long before refined sugar made its way to Japan, many desserts were sweetened with a paste of red azuki beans known as anko. Dango topped with anko is a popular traditional treat.
15. Know your dango from your mochi
Dango are often confused with a similar food known as mochi.Dango and mochi are both chewy. They have a similar flavor. They look similar. They are made from the same kind of rice. As a result, it's easy to falsely assume that dango are mochi. Dango are made from mochiko. Mochiko is rice flour made from a sticky variety of Japanese rice known as Mochigome.Mochi aren't made from flour. They are made by pounding Mochigome rice with giant mallets. There's no reason to hit a dango with a mallet.
16. Wrap them in medieval plastic wrap
Sasa Dango are a specialty of Niigata Prefecture that are wrapped in Sasa (a type of bamboo) leaves. This tradition began in the Edo-era when Sasa leaves were commonly used as a way to preserve food. It's essentially the Edo-era equivalent of plastic wrap.
| Dango is ranked | #5 of 11 Ways To Eat Anko #5 of 9 Ways To Eat Sakura #7 of 32 Japanese Snacks #10 of 15 Ways to Eat Mochi #16 of 16 Signs Japan is Obsessed With Soybeans #17 of 22 Japanese Festival Foods #23 of 29 Japanese Street Foods #24 of 106 Japanese Foods #64 of 96 Vegetarian Japanese Foods |
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