和菓子の「銘」と歌の世界

10月27日(日）の午後、京菓子 末富さまの会長 山口富蔵さまをお迎えして講座を開催いたしました。お菓子には銘があり、依頼主（買い手）の思いを引き出してイメージを形作っていきます。山頭火のお話でも銘の付け方の解説がございました。
作り手が成長するには、修行も必要ですが、お客様のイメージを深く読み取ることも欠かせません。和菓子の多彩な表現は作り手と依頼主との話し合いで表現が多様になります。色とりどりの表現の数々は作り手の経験も深くかかわる事を学びました。

講座の終盤では、お点前もあり、青い山をイメージしたお菓子を召し上がっていただきました。講座の最後には、本日解説時にご覧いただいた5種の主菓子もお持ち帰りいただきました。

The “Allusions” of Japanese Sweets and the World of Poetic Verse
On the afternoon of October 27, we invited Tomizo Yamaguchi, President of Kyoto Suetomi, to give a lecture. Japanese sweets each have their own signature allusion made according to the image that its commissioner (or buyer) has in mind. Even while discussing the haiku poet Santoka Taneda, Mr. Yamaguchi explained how these signature allusions are assigned.
For a creator of Japanese sweets to grow, training is necessary, but deeply reading into the image that the customer has in mind is also indispensable. The varied expressions of Japanese sweets take on a wide range through the discussions that a Japanese sweets item’s creator has with its commissioner.
In this lecture, we learned that the creator’s experiences are deeply involved in each one of the colorful expressions found in Japanese sweets.

There was a tea ceremony at the end of the lecture, where sweets created in the image of a lush green mountain were served. Our guests took home with five varieties of the Japanese tea sweets discussed during the lecture.