Kibi dango (millet dumpling)

Writer Akatsuki Kanenari [ja] in his 1862 essay collection observed that such foods, made out of millet meals or other ground grains undergoing a process of steaming and pounding, and recognizable as dango to his contemporaries, were once called bei (餅, the same character as mochi) in the olden days.

The pun is attested in one waka poem and one haiku dating to the early 17th century, brought to attention by poet and scholar Shida Giyū [ja] in a treatise written in 1941.

That premise was later compromised by Koike Tōgorō [ja], who after examining Edo-period texts of Momotarō concluded that "Japan's number one" or even "millet dumpling" had not appeared in the tale until decades after this haiku.

The founder of the Kōeido confection business authored a travel guide in 1895, in which he claimed that Kibitsuhiko rolled with his own hand some kibi dango to give to Emperor Jimmu who stopped at Takayama Palace in Okayama,[18] but that anecdote was purely anachronistic.

[20] In the widely familiar version of Momotarō, the hero spares his traveling rations of "kibi dango" to a dog, a pheasant, and a monkey and thereby gains their allegiance.