To my younger self: 'You might not believe it, but you're going to love dorayaki!'

I want to write so much more about food, but I keep putting it off because I want to write about other things too. Maybe it's because it feels too much like everyday life. Or maybe I just think I can write about it anytime.

This time, it's about my favorite snack that I just can't get enough of.
It's already given away by the photo and title above, but it's dorayaki.

Whenever I eat dorayaki while thinking about how much I love it, I also always think, 'I didn't used to like this, did I?'
Just like how grandparents tell the same stories over and over, that story always comes up. It's so persistent in my brain that I just have to get it out.

As a child, I was a very picky eater. I didn't like the fibers in vegetables; I disliked the texture that made them hard to chew through, the sound that resonated in my ears when I did, and the smell that came from those fibers.
That's why I actually liked the vegetables that children generally dislike, like green peppers and carrots. Because I could chew through them.
I liked spinach because I admired Popeye. And by 'admired,' I don't mean I had a crush on him, but rather that I wanted to be like him.
I've written about this episode a few times. I wanted those bulging muscles, and even though I didn't do any training, I would pose in front of the mirror over and over and go show my mother the meager muscles I had.

My skewed sense of taste applied to sweets as well.
Among sweet things, I liked raisins, but for cookies, it was only Oreos. I preferred things that were a bit salty, like crackers.
My preferences for things that were just sweet were very limited. Sweet drinks, ice cream, and jellies. Maybe I liked them because they were cold. There were a few years when I was passionately in love with chocolate, but then I grew to dislike it, and when it came to cake, I overwhelmingly preferred cheesecake. Especially the chilled kind.

I really disliked fresh whipped cream.
Because it was lukewarm.
And I think now that it was because I could feel the fat in it.

When I was old enough to have memories, I was living in New Jersey, but that was about 50 years ago.
My mother's parents would send us packages from time to time.
I wonder how big they were. To me at the time, they were cardboard boxes big enough for me to fit inside, and they were filled with all sorts of Japanese goods.

It was a time when the whole family would gather around the box, filled with excitement. It was packed with things we didn't usually see, and it was full of an exotic atmosphere.
Once, there was a kokeshi doll inside, and when it was handed to me with the words, 'Oh, this is nice for a girl,' I just went, '...Um. What is this...' It's a bit scary-looking for a small child, isn't it?

The best treat of all was the castella cake.
Even when castella was lukewarm, it was so fluffy and smelled so good it felt like I might float away. I especially loved the brown, fragrant part, and I would do something ill-mannered like scraping it off to eat it.

Then, one day.
There was a cake that looked like a short log inside.

What is this? It's different from the usual one.

When I ate it for the first time, my throat felt like it was getting clogged, and I felt suffocated. At the same time, there was this unique, overwhelming aroma and a sweetness that felt almost painful as it went down my throat.

I hate this. I don't want any more.

That was the Ichiroku Tart.

After that experience, I disliked red bean paste (anko) for a long time.

Let's take a break here.

I'll write here that the current me loves fibrous vegetables and red bean paste. It wasn't a dramatic change that happened overnight. I gradually grew to like them.

I gradually grew to like fresh whipped cream too. But even now, if you put it next to custard cream, I overwhelmingly prefer custard.
That's not because I don't like fresh cream, but just because I love custard cream so much.
When I have cream puffs or cream buns filled with plenty of custard, I'm completely satisfied. At my age, though, my stomach can't handle eating them all the time.

When I was around 20, cream puffs filled with both custard and fresh cream started to become popular and eventually became the norm.
At the time, I could only just 'tolerate' fresh cream, so I thought, 'Why would you do something so unnecessary?' but gradually I started to prefer the ones with both.

Come to think of it, when I was a child and bought taiyaki at a street stall, I hated the ones with red bean paste, so if there was one with custard, I would choose that.
There wasn't much variety back then, so there were times when only red bean paste was available. In those cases, I would eat it because it was given to me, so I liked the ones that had as much of the outer batter as possible.
I thought having red bean paste all the way to the tail was out of the question.

...It's the other way around, isn't it.

But that's what I thought back then.

That's how much I disliked red bean paste, even though I loved the fragrant aroma of the batter.

I gradually started to like it, and I think it's only been in the last five years or so that I've truly come to love red bean paste.
I think I've finally reached the point where I can enjoy the flavor of adzuki beans. Plus, I've finally come to deeply appreciate the sweetness of the bean paste.

So.

Dorayaki is irresistible to me.

Can you tell from everything I've said so far?
The batter should be fluffy and moist. The aroma is essential. Absolutely. Necessary. It is.
And plenty of red bean paste, too.
And fresh cream, balanced perfectly and light.

That's why I love the dorayaki I posted earlier so much.

I love the ones from specialty shops, of course.

If they have chestnuts in them, they're so delicious they make me sway.

But for now, even convenience store dorayaki are high quality. Fresh cream and red bean paste. They're so good.

If my younger self knew I'd turn out like this 50 years later, she'd be surprised.

As I am now, I have to restrain myself from buying one every time I see them, just so I don't eat too many.