The Hyakunin Isshu Cracker trilogy continues! Way back in 2011, when I first wrote this blog, I posted about some neat Japanese senbei (deep fried crackers made from rice dough), featuring poems of the Hyakunin Isshu. The pictures were lost however, and so I can’t really show what they looked like.

Then in 2022, I wrote another post about a different set of Hyakunin Isshu crackers we got in Japan. However, I only had a couple examples, not the complete set.

This time, I have the complete set. My father-in-law sometimes receives them as periodic gifts during the summer (a.k.a. Ochūgen, お中元) from business partners and such. The company website for these crackers is here.

There are six varieties in the set, each featuring a poem of the Hyakunin Isshu.

These first two are poems 98 (left, かぜそ) which has a spicy, wasabi (?) flavor, and 36 (right, なつ) which has baked shrimp flavor.

These two are poems 2 (left, はるす) which has leaf-shaped crackers with a salty taste, and 81 (right, ほ) is baked with nori seaweed.

The one on the left is also written with poem 98 (left, かぜそ), but has a light salty cracker flavor. This one is my favorite. The one on the right didn’t have a poem written on the front, but the back was printed with poem 97 (こぬ), and has some lightly flicked baked seaweed on it.

There might be more poems and/or flavors, but this is what I got from the boxed set we brought back to the US. Anyhow, it’s neat to see the poems written in a traditional cursive script (rather than standard printed Japanese), and I wonder if there’s some association between certain poems and certain flavors but I don’t see a connection yet.

As with the handwriting book, it’s interesting to see how the Hyakunin Isshu lives on in Japanese culture in fun, friendly ways like this.

In Japan, gift-giving (omiyagé お土産) among friends and relatives is a common tradition, and recently a friend returned from Japan and gave us some special crackers (senbei) featuring poems from the Hyakunin Isshu. The crackers come in different flavors, and the wrapper each has a random poem.

I got a curry-flavored one:

The first two verses of the poem, poem 99, are written on the front. On the back are the remaining verses:

Hyakunin Isshu-themed crackers are sold here and there, and I’ve posted about it in the past, but it’s still nice to get them from time to time.

P.S. This vendor sells Hyakunin Isshu themed senbei crackers as well (it was the vendor featured in the original post).

Edit: the pictures in his post are now lost unfortunately. There is a more up to date post here though if you would still like to read.

My wife often gets sembei crackers from her family in Japan in the mail, and especially a package of these crackers in particular:

These are Hyakunin Isshu themed crackers! In each container is 6 different sembei crackers: salty, sweet, sesame flavored, seaweed-wrapped, shrimp flavored and one with nuts. They’re all quite good.

But the clever part is what’s under the crackers:

Each package contains a different poem from the Hyakunin Isshu! The one on the left is poem 36, written in cursive, poetic script, while the one on the right is poem 26, also in cursive style.

A very nice snack, I think. 🙂 You can check out the company’s website too if you would like to learn more.