Bettara-Ichi

The annual Pickle Market, or Sticky-Sticky Fair, is held near the Ebisu Shrine in Tokyo, Japan, to supply people with what they will need to observe the Ebisu Festival on the following day, October 20. People buy wooden images of Ebisu, good-luck tokens, and most importantly, the white, pickled radish known as bettara that is so closely identified with the fair. The Sticky-Sticky Fair was named after the way the pickled radishes were sold. Stall keepers used to dangle them from a rope so the buyer wouldn’t get his hands sticky from the malted rice in which the radishes had been pickled. Discuss

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