There are a variety of sweets and snacks made from rice in Japan. It is said that rice snacks already existed before the Nara period (710-794), 1300 to 1400 years ago. Later, sweets such as "mochi" emerged. Today, there is a wide variety of snacks, from hard ones such as “senbei”, or rice crackers, to soft sweets such as "mochi" and "dango". There is also a snack is called " pongashi ", which is a puffed cereal cooked under high pressure. "Pon" refers to the explosive "pon" sound made when rice is popped out of the pressure cooker. This sweet has a simple taste and has been popular since the Taisho era (1912-1926).