comfit

北九州では金平糖で彩られた, 珍しい喫茶店が人気を集めています。

Old-fashioned sweets make cafe colorful

KITAKYUSHU — A Kitakyushu coffee shop is a major draw for visitors from around Japan for a sweet nostalgic reason — kompeito, a small lumpy colored sugar candy.

When visitors ascend the winding stairs to enter NAO Cafe on the second floor of a building in Kokura-Kita Ward, they are greeted by a world of pink, blue, purple and many other colors.

This virtual rainbow comes from kompeito neatly displayed on a counter in glass bottles of various sizes and shapes, such as hearts and bulbs.

中略

Kompeito is believed to have been introduced from Portugal during the Sengoku (warring states) period of the late 15th to late 16th centuries, with the name deriving from the Portuguese word confeito, which means comfit, a type of candy.

According to a major confectionery maker, mechanized production of kompeito began in Osaka at the end of the Meiji era (1868-1912), and at one time there were dozens of makers in Osaka alone.

以下省略
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002823370

本日取り上げる表現は “comfit” です。『新英和大辞典』(第五版, 研究社)には, 「(まれ)コンフィット(木の実・果物などに砂糖衣をかけた糖菓)」とありました。

本文にも記されていますが, 「こんぺいとう」は, ポルトガル語で “comfit” を意味する “comfeito” に由来し, 戦国時代に日本へ取り入れられたようです。

「菓子屋」を表す“confectionery” や「<菓子の原料など>を調製[調合]する」を意味する”confect” は, ここからきていることがわかりました。(Cayu)