Mr. Belling: When I went to visit this rice cake plant, I hadn't realized how the rice cakes were made.

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Japanese financial outfits are scrambling to become better rice cake merchants themselves.

FORBES: Where do you buy your rice cakes?

Shinsaku Kakuno of Nichieis corporate planning division explains the decision to go with a European underwriter: You should always buy rice cakes from the rice cake merchant.

FORBES: Where do you buy your rice cakes?

The meal is often finished with a traditional sweet - such as a sticky rice cake in the shape of a purple blossom, with paper-thin slices of pear shaped like leaves.

BBC: Kaiseki-ryori: Japanese haute cuisine

With a parting gift of a large, spherical rice cake to allow each child to grow a year older in peace, the Toshidon walk backwards out of the house and proceed to the next family.

UNESCO: Culture