Unlike most celebrations in Japan, Hina Matsuri — the traditional Dolls Festival — does not hinge around a great deal of eating. There's plenty of ritual in setting up the arrays of dolls, but apart from light snacks of chirashi-zushi and hamaguri (clam) soup, there's not a whole lot of feasting involved. But because it's a day for girls, there are plenty of sweets and candies — and very pretty they are too. This is a very simple display at a candy shop in Kyoto's Nishiki-koji market.
And this is a rather cuter display in a local store:
You'd really think this would be a chance for the convenience stores to push some product, but the best I found in our local Famima was a packet of kusamochi — sweet mochi dumplings in a vivid green colour (the green comes from mugwort herb):
Our local upmarket Kinokuniya displayed rather more marketing savvy. Maybe people with more disposable income are more likely to adhere to tradition — and put their money with their hearts lie. Whatever, there were substantial displays of hamaguri clams, grilled anago eel (for the chirashi-zushi), and multi-coloured kamaboko fish cakes — plus more green mochi. But really it's time this holiday got seriously commercialzed. When are we going to get chocolate hina dolls? Green Haagen-Dazs ice cream? Hina champagne sets for the adults (his and hers, of course)? Now if I was in marketing rather than just a lowly writer... Anyway, there's plenty of good info on hina matsuri here at the wonderful Just Hungry:
And here is some more information about the tradition and the rituals involved.