Fun fact: you can pay a few tens of dollars at a factory tour to try your hand at making them yourself. They start you with cabbage and shrimp tempura, which a

Fun fact: you can pay a few tens of dollars at a factory tour to try your hand at making them yourself. They start you with cabbage and shrimp tempura, which are easy enough to succeed at after an hour of practice. Very fun. Cabbage involves pouring molten wax in a thin layer over a hot water bath then waiting for it to congeal on the surface of the water and pinching it with your hands while still pliable. After you get it in the desired folded shape you quench it in a cold water bath and it sets almost instantly. [Edit to add: doh, that detail is all in the article.] Ask me if you're ever going through Gifu and want to try -- I can point you in the right direction. They are, ahem, not used to foreigners figuring out how to book tours but happy to share the wonder of Japanese plastic food with the world.