Uji Kintoki

Day twenty-five: Uji Kintoki
Kyu-Iwasaki-Tei teahouse, ¥600

The Kyu-Iwasaki-Tei house near Ueno Park is an extravagant cultural mash-up built for a founder of Mitsubishi financial group during the Meiji period. Architect Josiah Condor was born in London in 1852, but lived in Japan from 1877 until his death in 1920. Somewhere he along the way he absorbed the influence of enough other cultures for Persian, Tuscan, Jacobean, and Pennsylvania Dutch elements to be readily identifiable in the house's facade and interiors.

The complex once comprised some 20 buildings on nearly 50000m2, but although the property was designated as a National Cultural Asset in 1952, both the building and the grounds have been ruthlessly pruned. Only three of the original buildings still stand: a detached "Swiss Gothic Cottage" housing the billiards room, the western-style mansion were guests were once received, and butted up against it, a large Japanese-style house where the original family actually lived.

Today a large part of the Japanese house has been given over to a tourist-friendly tearoom (in sparsely-furnished Japanese houses this kind of coversion is a mere matter of giving the tatami mats a good sweep and setting out low tables and cushions). From the limited menu I chose Uji Kintoki, an pile of shaved ice topped with green tea syrup, a dollop of sweetened red beans, and a clutch of white dango dumplings, a perfect energy-booster on a sweltering day.

I placed my order at the register and headed for one of the empty tables at the back when a woman sitting at the prime front table (maximum breeze!) waved me over and insisted that I join her and her husband. He spoke a little English and we all had a grand time muddling through a conversation about my travel plans and the merits of Japanese sweets.

After years of studying the subtleties of ethnographic interviewing, my research technique has devolved to a single question: "So, what is your number-one favorite sweet?"  This lovely even drew me a little sketch of hers, which, sadly, is only available for a few days in early spring.

Purin

Day twenty-four: Purin

Built on the site of the prison where Tojo and other Japanese military leaders were held and executed, the Sunshine City skyscraper is something like 10 suburban shopping malls piled one on top of the other. On the 2nd and 3rd floors the usual boutiques give way to Namjatown, a theme park based on the Namja company's popular video games. A ¥3900 ticket buys you access to such intriguing attractions such as Jigoku Benjo (“Hell’s Toilet”), Jigoku Ryokan (“Haunted Inn”), and Katori Daisakusen (“Pig-riding Shooting Game”), or for only ¥300 you can head straight to the food themeparks that anchor each floor. Gyoza Stadium brings together the top dumpling shops from all over Japan, while over at Tokyo Dessert Republic, “seven shops make lots of dessert and they are waiting for you!”

Given the choice, I’d take up residence in Ice Cream City, where speciality ice creams from around the world promise “a brand-new taste explosion”; there's gelato, of course, and a genuine Turk paddling up genuine Turkish ice cream, a Cup Ice Museum that documents the historical development of ice cream packaging and flavors, and a chilly shop where a variety of cups and pops almost dare you to try them. The inventive abandon apparent in flavors such as miso, eggplant, sea salt (very nice!), or cow tongue (a cartoon cow on the label reassures suspicious consumers that there is "real tongue inside!") belies a relationship to dairy products that is relatively recent. In fact, dairy was once so repugnant to the Japanese that they characterized themselves as smelling (pleasantly) of soy sauce (shoyu nioi), while milk-swilling Europeans went about in a sour cloud of gyunyu nioi. Of the many ways people have come up with for differentiating between "us" and "them", this is surely among the most reasonable.

On my visit to Namjatown, the Japanese conversion to dairy was demonstrated even more clearly by a temporary event called "PURIN 2008". Hundreds of speciality puddings from all over the country had set up camp in long, geographically-organized coolers. Thanks to the northern island's reputation for purity and freshness, the Hokkaido cooler was decimated, down to a dozen or so surviors.

From elegant Nara came "Great Buddha Pudding", while saltier Yokohama was represented by "Bust Pudding", which came in overturned twin packs that appeared to be bursting through the blouse of a doe-eyed schoolgirl on the wrapper. Truth be told I found the whole thing overwhelming to the point of being unappetizing, but I did appreciate that its exhaustively taxonomic approach made PURIN 2008 seem more academic that gluttonous.

And should life in Ice Cream City or the Pudding Encampment become too much, you can also head to "Healing Forest" for a massage or other spa treatments; just hang a left at Hell’s Toilet.

Rakugan

Day twenty-three: Rakugan / 落雁

Like higashi, rakugan are dry sweets that have been pressed into a shaped mold. Although the two terms are sometimes used interchangably, my understanding is that rakugan contain a much higher proportion of starch than higashi, which are often pure sugar. Today, rakugan also tend to be far larger than higashi, although this hasn't always been the case.

The name "rakugan" describes the sweet's original 17th century form, when the pale, powdery blocks were sprinkled with a few black sesame seeds, thought to resemble a flock of geese in flight. Later that century, confectioners began to use carved wooden molds based on those used in China and Korea and the repetoire of rakugan shapes expanded.

These molds, known as kashigata (confectionery form) or kigata (wooden mold), are among my favorite objects. I just spent a very happy day at the International Christian University's Hachiro Yuasa Memorial Museum photographing the large number of kashigata included in the museum's folk art collection. As a woodcarver, I can get so utterly wrapped up in the finely detailed craftsmanship of such objects that I forget their larger purpose. Fortunately, on my way home from the museum I passed a sweet shop selling large, pastel-tinted, lotus-shaped rakugan. It was like looking up from examing a fossil to find a live version of the same animal watching me from the windowsill.

Or perhaps "live version" isn't quite right, for rakugan like the one above aren't really meant for the living. This is the week of the year when the Japanese honor their ancestors at a festival called Obon; while sweets are often given as offerings at temples and home altars, sweets shaped like the lotus, a Buddhist symbol of rebirth, are especially appropriate at this time of year. When I took my rakugan lotus up to the cashier she carefully explained that it was "only for display".

Unfortunately, kashigata themselves are also, increasingly, "only for display". Old molds are often impractically large and if they are used at all, it is only for ceremonial purposes. There are a handful of carvers who can still produce the smaller molds used to make higashi, and it has long been my own "run away to the circus" dream to study with one of them, but with each passing year my chances dwindle. When I recently spotted a display of contemporary kashigata another Tokyo museum I was so excited that I held my breath as I examined the accompanying photos and short biographies of the carvers who made them.

I practically skipped downstairs to ask the napping attendant for more information about these men. He stifled a yawn and grunted an answer: "Shinda-yo".

This was an expression I remembered from watching the Beat Takeshi gorefest Battle Royale without subtitles: dead.

But we were talking about more than one person here. Surely they couldn't all be...?

"All of them."

But what about the kashigata carving industry, which must once have thrived in this area?

"Dame. Owarimashita."

No more. Finished.

My sense of loss was absurd but very real. I certainly wasn't related to these men, but I desperately wish that I had been able to at least meet them. And I'm certainly no Buddhist, but I've set this lovely rakugan out on a plate and I'll leave it there for the week of Obon, just in case.

An antique lotus kashigata, split and mended.

A stack of lotus rakugan on a home altar.

Jelly

Day twenty-two: Jelly / ゼリー
Left: Aosakura / 青桜
Kameya, 3-26-2 Yoyogi, Shibuya, ¥230
Right: Edomomoyo / 江戸桃よ
Nihombashiya /日本橋屋 in Ueno Atré, ¥315

My motto for this summer might as well be “Another day, another jelly,” and judging from the variety available, I’m not alone.

While not a native fruit, “pea-chi” has become a staple flavor for foods ranging from milk drinks to gum. Edomomoyo is a mid-range jelly (some cost up to four times as much), filled with diced peach. It tasted both hauntingly familiar and slightly disappointing, as if I’d had it for a snack in kindergarten.

Aosakura is flavored with ume, often translated as “plum” but in fact a Japanese apricot. I’ve never eaten one fresh but I’ve had them pickled, fermented, fried, macerated, powdered, and flecked with gold leaf. While I dislike very few of these formats, I find that ume lends itself especially well to summer jelly. Flavored with umeshu liquor, it’s light and highly perfumed, and the tender little ume lurking at the bottom lends some meatiness to the silky jelly. A more pedestrian but still pleasant version is also available in three-packs at the ¥100 shop.

Dango

Day twenty-one: Dango / 団子
Furuya-Koganean, 3-2-4 Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, ¥945/box of 5

From 1936 until about 10 years ago, Furuya-Koganean operated out of a single shop, doing a respectable trade in sweet staples such as yōkan and monaka. Then one of its products was “discovered” by a Mitsukoshi depachika buyer, and, ta-da, a star was born. Like a hit TV show, Furuya spun off one company (Hideki) and then another (Koganean—of which, more later), and today boasts 20 outlets. Unlike many spinoffs, all of Furuya’s offshoots are known for maintaining the quality of the original.

But jewel in the company crown in still the product chosen by Mitsukoshi as the best of the best, their dango, seen above in a picture that doesn’t begin do them justice. That heap that looks like salt and pepper is actually crushed black sesame seeds and wasambon sugar. Something like 98% of the sesame consumed in Japan was grown in China for oil extraction; Furuya’s toasty, aromatic black sesame is grown in Japan with just this end in mind. Wasambon sugar, as previously mentioned, is a rare and delicate sugar coaxed out of tiny Chinese canes on the island of Tokushima.

Buried under that delicious detritus are three pale, chubby dango on a bamboo skewer. There are almost limitless variations, but dango are basically balls of flour-based dough that are steamed or boiled until translucent and succulent; these are made using sweet rice flour, hot water, and nothing else. Dango are a bland but adhesive core that can be doused in a range of sauces, pastes and powders, such as salty/sweet crushed goma. At first I was cursing the powdery mixture for flying up my nose but by the end I was mopping up the spillage with a damp finger.

Furuya starts production at 3 o’clock every morning, and advises that their dango must be eaten the same day. Well, if you say so…

The pictures below show the packaging for the dango 5-pack, and the premises of the original shop.

Tokoroten

Day twenty: Tokoroten / ところてん
Tokyu Foodshow, ¥152 　

Tokoroten noodles of sliced unflavored kanten are another popular summer treat. Chilled and topped with either dark or light syrup, tokoroten are refreshing, low-calorie, high-fiber—and yes, a slightly odd experience for the unaccustomed. The noodles are very slippery and offer so little resistance that your teeth may clack together if you dig in too enthusiastically.

Personally, any enthusiasm I might have for the texture is undercut by a slightly sour, sulphuric odor. Blame might fall on the molasses in the syrup, but since I tend toward squeamishness and paranoia, I also wonder if the odor isn't left over from the way the kanten was processed.

The orignal method of making kanten from seaweed was discovered in Kyoto in the 17th century, when dried gelidum strips were accidentally rehydrated. A few small producers still use the old production techniques. The seaweed is harvested in the autumn and allowed to dry in the sun before being shipped from the coast to inland processing sites. During the winter, the dried seaweed is cooked until it forms a gel. When cool, this is cut into blocks and spread out across frozen fields or paddies. For up to two weeks, the water in the gel goes through a daily cycle of freezing and evaporating until nothing is left but the kanten fibers, which are then ready to be processed into sheets, threads, or powder.

Even using these “natural” production methods, kanten is a highly processed food. Industrial production has cut out a great deal of the labor required by using sulfuric acid to achieve a colorless and “flavorless” end product. The annual global production of kanten is around 7000 tons, one-third of which comes Japan, the world's largest single producer. Much of that produced stays in Japan, where the average person eats about 20 grams of kanten per year.

Suika

Day nineteen: Suika / 西瓜
Ryuin-an Temple, Engakuji, Kamakura

Because one possible pronunciation of the number 33 can also mean “disastrous” or “terrible”, many Japanese expect the 33rd year of a woman’s life to be fraught with particular danger (for men it’s 42); those afflicted can turn to shrines for help in balancing out their luck. Since today was the last day of my own year of honyaku (“great calamity”), I figured a shrine visit couldn’t hurt. I decided to head for Kamakura, an ancient capital city where temples and shrines are as thick on the ground as convenience stores are in Tokyo.

The day started none too well. Having forgotten to get cash yesterday, I headed out with water, a baggie of nuts and dried fruit, and a pocketful of change. I got off at Kita-Kamakura station (cheaper than going all the way into town), and decided to splurge on entry into the sprawling Enkaguji temple complex, which includes numerous gardens and temples dotted throughout a steep-sided hollow.

Intending to get my money’s worth by visiting every building in the place, I turned left from the exit and headed up the hill to an off-the-tourist-track temple, where a crowd was gathering for a major annual ceremony. When a fatherly-looking Japanese man approached and asked if I was a tourist, I didn’t know what to say. What was the right answer? And would the wrong one get me kicked out?

I needn’t have worried. Isao and I got to chatting and when he suggested that I try one of the temple’s bento boxes, I excused myself, mindful of my budget, saying that I was more interested in Japanese sweets and would save my appetite for an afternoon raid on the downtown shops. My new acquaintance looked very surprised, then said, ”Oh, then there is someone I must introduce you to!” And off we hustled, down one hill and up the next to another of Engakuji’s out-of-the-way temples.

Ryuin-an consists of a group of small wooden buildings that sit on a narrow ledge overlooking the rest of the valley. We climbed up into a tearoom through the open sliding doors and sat on cushions at a low table, looking out at the view. Within minutes, whipped matcha and mizuyokan appeared, along with the temple abbot, Ōta Shūbun. Ōta-san turned out to be both a tea master and the author of a paperback guide to all things “tea”, including shops specializing in chagashi, tea sweets. He very kindly presented me with a copy, thus doubling the number of shops on my “must visit” list.

When Isao needed to leave, Ōta-san invited his friend (since kindergarten!), Keiko, to come over. With Keiko translating, we discussed Japanese sweets until, as if by magic, lunch-laden trays appeared. This was my first real experience of shōjin ryōri, cuisine developed in Buddhist temples, and I’d say it’s worth becoming a monk just to eat like this. There were silky somen noodles in a shiitake/konbu broth with diced shiso on top, sakura-shaped fishcakes, and a huge selection of pickles.

The meal ended with the best suika (watermelon) I’ve ever tasted—sweet, seedless, and a perfect match for the red lacquer bowls. It was also a timely reminder to me that seasonality is more than just a matter of using a sakura cookie cutter in the spring and a maple leaf in the fall. Most Japanese foodstuffs are considered to have a shun, a time of year when they are at their peak; it’s a concept that can easily lead to fussbudget connoisseurship, but it makes a lot more sense than crunching on white-fleshed strawberries in January. If today wasn’t that suika’s shun, it couldn’t have been far off.

Later in the day I did make it to the Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine, but it seemed a little perfunctory. I was already feeling very, very lucky.

Sasa no Tsuyu

Day eighteen: Sasa no tsuyu / 笹の露
Hontakasagoya / 本高浅砂屋 at Meguro Atre, ¥140

We had an earthquake today, right as I was setting up to take this picture. I was sitting on the porch (my “studio”) in the blazing sun and suddenly a large invisible person tried to yank the deck chair out from under me. It wasn’t big and didn’t last, but it was the first quake I’ve felt in eight years, and it shook me up enough that I had to take twice as many photos as usual to get one in focus.

Then I sat on the porch with a cup of icecold barley tea (mugicha) and ate my “Bamboo Dew” very, very slowly. I picked it for its shocking pink tint, but the ume pulp didn’t seem to add much beyond color and a faint sourness. The outer layer of goo (I think it’s kuzu again) was wrapped around a fat glob of the velvetiest shiroan bean paste I have ever tasted. I let the bite sit in my mouth for a while and the shiroan just dissolved away without going watery first—sort of like when you’re standing on a beach and the sand under your feet goes out with the tide.

After my “lunch” I decided to get out for a while. I knew it was silly, but I felt a little nervous about getting on a train, so I decided to explore the area on the far side of the station. I found a map posted on the main road that seemed to advertise some kind of fountain-like tourist destination a short walk away down back streets. I passed a temple getting spruced up for the imminent Obon holiday, and one of the most beautifully carved small shrines I’ve ever seen. I found a canal and followed in to the water feature, a series of tiered pools that I suspect were an early stab at water sanitation.

On the map I had noticed one more attraction on a turning just past the pools. The path led up a hill and into a bamboo grove. Where the grove cleared I found it, a fully-fashioned miniature Shinto shrine. From the bottom step to the ridge of the copper roof was probably all of five feet. It was on the far side of a little pond, but accessible via a tiny humpbacked red lacquer bridge, with handrails that wouldn’t reach my knee. Or it was accessible at one time; these days the whole thing is fenced off, so I just watched it for a while, thinking about insubstantiality and the fact that bamboo groves were traditional places of refuge during earthquakes; apparently the roots are particularly good at knitting the earth together.

A long time ago one of my Japanese friends confessed that on some level she liked earthquakes, because they teach people not to take even very basic things like solidity for granted.

Higashi

Day seventeen: Higashi / 干菓子
Mu-an at Happōen, ¥860 for tea and sweets

Happōen garden is a little oasis in urban Meguro. The garden’s name means “beautiful from any angle”, but it is perhaps loveliest seen from the low-lying koi pond at its center. With tree-covered hills rising steeply around the pond and skyscrapers looming behind the trees, sitting in the pavilion at the water’s edge feels like sitting at the bottom of a green bowl with a concrete rim.

As views go, looking out at the garden over a cup of whipped matcha in the Mu-an teahouse is a close second. Decorated with stripped and rough-hewn woods and soft green and ochre paint, the tearoom seems like a natural extension of the world seen through the wide picture windows.

Alongside the matcha, a kimono-clad hostess serves a small tray of seasonal sweets. On this occasion, my friend Yoshimi and I enjoyed higashi, “dry” sweets of sugar and flour that are pressed into a carved wooden mold. Although higashi have a relatively long shelf life and are suitable year round, the pink morning glory and the green pods of edamame beans are specific to the summer season.

Special wasambon sugar gives higashi their delicate flavor and soft texture. Farmers in Tokushima prefecture harvest a low-yield Chinese sugar cane, then subject it to a laborious process that includes hand washing the sugar four times in order to remove the molasses. Wasambon production has been designated as one of Japan’s “Important Cultural Properties.”

Monaka

Day sixteen: Monaka / 最中
Toraya, ¥157

Like little Victorian ladies, monaka are prim, plump, and quite delicate. They consist of two incredibly thin rice wafers that are baked to a crisp in an iron mold, then glued together with a dollop of very sweet, very stiff bean paste (in this instance, shiroan, made from white beans).

Monaka are one of the few Japanese sweets that I would rather look at than eat. I love the idea of them, of a tiny, sculpted box of delights—like kōgō (tiny sculpted boxes for incense), only edible. But faced with an actual monaka I inevitably think of those Styrofoam clamshell boxes, and half-expect each plum blossom or chrysanthemum to contain a miniature burger.

Shinkomochi

Day fifteen: Shinkomochi / しんこもち
Murakara, Tokyo Kotsu Kaikan 1F, 2-10-1 Yurakucho, ¥125

On my way to ogle the Ginza district’s snazzy tea shops, I swung by the tourist office and while I was ransacking the brochure racks, the skies opened. Since it was raining so hard I couldn’t see the cross street, I elected to spend a little time in a shop in the same building.

Like the depachika stalls I’ve mentioned, Murakara brings together regional delicacies that would otherwise be hard to find in Tokyo. While ransacking the sweets rack, I found today’s treat nestling next to several types of Sendai yubeshi. Although the label was fairly confusing, I think it’s called shinkomochi and I think it’s from Miyagi prefecture. And I think I need to go to Miyagi. Soon.

Yes, I know how it looks, but as with yubeshi, it’s what’s inside that counts. This is the Japanese version of Elvis’s deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. A round patty of doughy rice and wheat mochi is folded around a dollop of sweet red bean paste, decorated with a tiny nubbin of hard candy, and deep fried in soybean oil. Voila: country-fried daifuku.

Like yubeshi, this is a whole-body experience. You only have to pierce the barebones plastic wrapper for the rich scent of hot oil to come wafting out. The crepey fried surface of the mochi leaves oily tracks on everything it touches. At first bite the outside has an almost chewing gum springiness to it, and then your teeth sink into the pocket of less resistance, filled with rich, smooth anko. While I’m not normally that into fried foods, give me one of these and a cup of coffee for breakfast on a cold morning, and I’d start the day with a smile and a satisfied stomach. And if they’re this good coming out of a plastic wrapper, just imagine them fresh from the fryer.

Mizuyōkan

Day fourteen: Mizuyōkan / 水羊羹
Above: Murakami at Takashimaya, ¥180
Below: Kameya, 3-26-2 Yoyogi, Shibuya, ¥126

Thanks to Japan’s tyrannical seasons, many foods need to be adjusted throughout the year. Yōkan is a substantial and popular sweet made of pulped beans, sugar, and kanten, but it’s on the heavy side for the hot weather eating, so this time of year the proportion of kanten is increased to make softer, lighter mizuyōkan (literally “water yōkan”).

Basic yōkan holds its shape well; it need only be sliced into bars and wrapped in plastic or foil. Softer mizuyōkan generally comes in some kind of container. Lengths of green bamboo are sometimes used, but seem to be losing out to standardized plastic replicas, like the one below.

The pink example is flavored with a vegetable called kinjisou (金時草), the green one with matcha tea. In both cases the flavoring is a very mild addition to the predominant sweetness. The bean meal gives mizuyōkan a slight but not unpleasant grittiness.

Soft Cream

Day thirteen: Soft cream
Kiminoen Tea (茶の君野園), Ueno 4-9-13, ¥300

Ueno is a area of sprawling gardens, imposing museums, and a one-time black market. A narrow shop-lined street now called Ameyokocho used to be “ameya yokocho”, or candy sellers' alley. After WWII, sugar shortages meant that many candy stalls gave way to vendors of less-than-legal goods. Today Ameyokocho is a crowded, noisy, low-end street market.

I was having a weird green-themed day (see below) so when I spotted a green ice cream cone outside a shop specializing in Japanese teas, I decided it was—in all senses—a sign. I ordered up a matcha “so-fu-to-ku-ri-mu”, a Japanese version of soft-serve ice cream that only reinforces the idea that adding extra vowels to English words is the next best thing to learning Japanese.

In any case, it was delicious, with a strong matcha flavor that teetered nicely between bitter and sweet (the picture above is of the plastic display cone, since mine cried out to be eaten quickly). I ate on a little tatami-covered bench inside the store, and just as I finished, one of the guys behind the counter came over, bowed, and offered me a cup. Cooling off with some softcream? Well, how about a nice hot cup of tea to wash it down?

Amakusajukushi

Day twelve: Amakusajukushi / 天草熟子
Sentairō (?) / 仙太郎 at Ikebukuro Tobu, ¥230 　　

Although there are many different terms for different categories of Japanese sweets (and I will go into this at nerdish length sometime soon), the root term that most share is an archaic word for “fruit”. Since most native Japanese fruits were either bland or sour, they had to be processed in some way to make them a palatable treat. When sweetened Chinese confections were first introduced during the Nara period (710-794), they were dubbed “Chinese fruit” and fitted into the same culinary categories previously occupied by dried and stewed fruits.

It is therefore quite fitting that summer sweets feature a number of “improved” fruits, such as Amakusajukushi. The top of a large orange is sliced off, its insides are scooped out and replaced with sweet, orange-flavored kanten (an alternate reading for the characters “amakusa” is tengusa, the name of the sea algae used to make kanten) and the top is replaced like a little lid. It is sold as either the whole fruit, or as slightly less imposing (and expensive) wedges.

While eating this refreshing jelly I realized one more thing that’s odd about kanten. When you bite or cut into gelatin, it basically splits at the point where teeth or spoon are applied. Kanten actually breaks, like very soft glass, as if in accord with its own internal stresses.

Kakigōri

Day eleven: Kakigōri / 欠き 氷　
Kyoto Sanjo Ohashi at the Aoyama Oval, ¥880-¥1100

One of the great joys of revisiting old haunts is reconnecting with old friends. My friend Trey and I went to middle school together but didn’t meet again until I moved to Tokyo, where Trey had been living for several years. For the first few months I was as helpless as an infant, and I’m not sure how I would have managed without Trey’s very patient help.

Good sport that he is, Trey agreed to meet me a stylish Aoyama café that specializes in posh updates of old-fashioned Japanese treats. When suggesting coolness just isn’t enough, the category of sweets known as kakigōri steps in. Basically heaps of shaved ice topped with syrup or stewed fruit, they can be as simple as a snow-cone or as elaborate the multi-tiered beauties shown here.

Trey’s was a variety of sundae, while mine, I think, was a 氷クリーム字治金時—in the excitement of the moment I forgot to ask for a translation. The mound of shaved ice is drizzled with condensed milk and topped with green tea ice cream, and rests on a baselayer of chunky sweet beans and chewy rice dumplings. 　

My apologies to Trey for making him look smaller than his dessert. They were in fact the same size.