"Funny Haiku" - Haiku Edition

For the first time in a while, I'm participating in a project by the former "Min-Hai" staff (*^^*)
When I saw the theme was "sweets," I thought, "Oh, interesting," and secretly bookmarked it (lol).
Yes, I myself am quite a "sweet tooth" 😁
So, I tried writing some haiku while keeping the basics of haiku in mind.

This is modeled after "Ouchi-juku" in Minami-Aizu, which I visited when I was a child.
A long time ago, I begged my father, "I want to see Ouchi-juku," and he took me there. Since it was right during the autumn foliage season, Ouchi-juku was bustling with quite a few tourists.
That was where they were serving "Tochi-mochi" (horse chestnut mochi).

Since I was a child, I don't remember the taste very well (bitter laugh), but it seems to be a specialty of Ouchi-juku in autumn, and I think it's a sweet that feels very much like it belongs in a mountainous area.
Somehow, it's a sweet that gives the impression of an elderly couple sharing it on a veranda.

This is from the famous "Obusedo" chestnut kanoko.

Unfortunately, I have never been to Obuse, but you can't go without "chestnut" sweets at this time of year, can you?
I remember having had this before, too.

I'm actually quite good at making sweets, but since chestnuts take a lot of effort to process, when I want to eat "chestnut sweets," I end up buying them (^_^;)
So, I chose some "autumn-like" sweets.
When I hear the name "Obuse," I somehow want to visit Nagano. Even though it's far from my home...

"Hardship" refers to suffering and struggling through difficulties. It's a word you might occasionally come across in historical documents.
It doesn't feel very "Halloween-y"... I thought (it's an image of a festival, right?), but this is based on an episode from the family of a descendant of a Nihonmatsu domain samurai I know.

In the Kasama family, the protagonists of my work "Hakuro" (White Dew), the husband died in the Boshin War, and his wife and children survived the difficult post-war period on a meager diet of nothing but grilled pumpkin every day.
However, in the end, that life was passed down to my acquaintance, and when I think about that history, I have indescribable feelings.
If descendants living in a peaceful era over 160 years later were to offer something to their ancestors, I thought it might be a sweet like this...

By the way, "pumpkin mochi" is more of a "homemade snack."
In Hokkaido, "potato mochi" is famous as a homemade snack, and if you replace the potato with "pumpkin," it becomes "pumpkin mochi" (*^^*)

rira-san, how is this?
The choice of sweets is a bit understated, though (lol).

#MinHaiHalloweenParty
#Essay
#BlissfulSweets
#Haiku
#MinnaNoHaiku