Karintō
Appearance
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Type | Snack food |
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Place of origin | Japan |
Main ingredients | Flour, yeast, and brown sugar |
Karintō (花林糖, karintō, (ateji)) is a traditional Japanese snack food. Sweet and deep-fried, it is made primarily of flour, yeast, and brown sugar. It has a deep brown and pitted appearance, and takes the form of a bite-sized pillow or short, sausage-like cylinder. Although traditional karintō is coated with brown sugar, other variations now appear on the market, such as white sugar, sesame seeds, miso, or peanuts.
In popular culture
[edit]- In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice, police detective and forensic scientist Ema Skye constantly eats karintō on duty (the snack was localized as chocolate-flavored "snackoos").
- In Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, karintō is stated to be one of Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu's favourite foods. The English release changes this to fried dough cookies, as karintō is not a well known food in the West.
- In Gosick, Kujo gives karintō to Victorique, who comments that they look like dog feces.
- In Lycoris Recoil, karintō are a staple food at the dorm.
- In Mirmo!, karinto is Yashichi’s favorite food.
- In Magical Emi episode 34, karintō are featured as a snack a character spends the entire episode trying to conquer his fear of.
History
[edit]Karintō's roots are unclear, with primary origination theories being either from around the Nara Period or being derived from a Portuguese snack in a later period. In either case it has been available from street merchants since at least the Tenpō era, roughly from 1830 to 1841.