Matsukaze

Matsukaze

¥970 / box of 10 pieces 

On my first morning in Kyoto and I headed out early enough to see tiny school children delightedly greeting their classmates and elderly joggers charging up miniature Mt. Funaoka. As I wandered east past the Daitokuji complex, I spotted a building across the street with all the classic indicators (weatherbeaten wooden sign, sliding doors, minimalist display window, verdigris lamp) that something inside is both edible and old-fashioned. 

Approaching the window I saw a hanging scroll, a single peony, and a plate with two slices of cake and a hand-painted label. Among the jumble of kanji were two that I could make out: “pine” and “wind.” And just then, through the fabric of my mask, I caught a whiff of something rich, sweet, and a little funky! 

The 250-year-old confectionery Matsuya Tobei is famed for matsukaze (“wind in the pines”) an unusually savory cake made from flour, sugar, malt, white miso, salted soybeans, and sesame seeds. The miso already nudges this moist, dense cake in a distinctly umami direction, but then it’s topped with fermented, salted black soybeans called Daitokuji natto (a “dry” natto, so no slime in sight). As an emotional eater, I am not unfamiliar with the taste of tear-soaked cake, and that’s the closest comparison I can offer. 

Matsukaze is used in autumn for tea ceremony but is very nice with coffee at any time of the year—and thank goodness! As it’s only sold by the box, I had a little more than I could handle and was able to distribute the excess at breakfast at my guest house. People from 5 different countries agreed: matsukaze was unlike any cake they’d ever had before. 

Matsuya Tobei 

Daitokuji Kitaoji, Kita-ku (in front of Daitokuji-mae bus stop) 

075-492-2850