Talk:Suzumiya Haruhi:Volume8 Editor in Chief★Straight Ahead!

Hishimochi-in-the-sky

Hishimochi 菱餅 (diamond-shaped rice cake)

Hishimochi is made of three layers of rice cakes, each of which is colored in green, white and pink respectively from bottom to top. The cake is believed to represent a nature scenery of early spring when green grass starts to grow under white snow while pink blossoms of peach trees come into bloom. [1]

Tsuruya-san says 絵に描いた菱餅, which literally translates to "a drawn portrait of a hishimochi." As Kyon suspected, this is a mild mangling of the saying 絵に描いた餅, or "a drawn portrait of a mochi." It means "perfunctory, nominal, something that is of no practical use: a 'castle in the air.'" There's an interesting read about it (at least for me (^ω^;)) here.

"Pie in the sky" is another common translation of this saying; I chose to use this one since it also refers to a food item. (^ω^;) I think another approach would've been to phrase it as "a boysenberry pie in the sky" or something like that.