Oshōgatsu—New Year’s. You wake up to the smell of dashi, the T.V. turned on to something cultural and a little bit boring—maybe something about poetry. The chill of the outside seeps into the room, but you have something to warm you up: ozōni, a comforting soup with the stretchy, gooey goodness of mochi.
I’ve found that many people in America, and by extension, the Western world, tend to think of the exact opposite of what I do when they imagine mochi. Mochi here is most prevalent in its ice cream form, but mochi is so much more.
Mochi is amazing. As an umbrella term for glutinous rice cakes, it comes in many forms with various cultural and religious associations. Its simplest form is made from steamed mochigome, glutinous rice. From here, mochi can take on an infinite number of forms: sweet or savory, hot or cold, hard or soft.
It’s no wonder that mochi comes in so many forms; it had lots of time to develop. The earliest evidence of mochi dates back several millennia to the Jōmon period (c. 14,000 B.C.E. to circa 300 B.C.E.). The first evidence of mochi’s religious connotations appears in the text Bungo no Kuni Fudoki (713 C.E.) of the Nara-period (710 C.E. – 784 C.E.) describing the origins of the Bungo Province (present-day Oita Prefecture). Since then, mochi has evolved to come in many different forms.
Any Japanese market in the weeks before New Year’s sells kagamimochi: stacked circular pound mochi, usually with a figurine of a satsuma mandarin or of the Chinese Zodiac sign of the coming year. This custom began during the Heian period, where these mochi were used as offerings to the gods in exchange for prosperity. Rice was the main source of grain for Japanese people in the past, and it was considered much more precious than it is now. For this reason, rice, and by extension mochi, is often associated with fertility and abundance. Few people emphasize the religious connections of mochi in the present day, but the core value of gratitude toward food and the connections it brings us still remain. In fact, just until recently, Japanese children were told during lunch, “a child who eats lots [of rice] is a good child”—something my father can attest to.
Associated with kagamimochi and all other religious forms of mochi is mochi pounding, using a kine, a wooden mallet, and an usu, a mortar. It’s a two-person craft of trust—one person in charge of the mallet, while the other swiftly wets and flips the mochi in between strikes. It’s common to see many mochi pounding ceremonies at shrines at New Year’s, as a symbol of good luck for the coming year.
Buying pounded mochi in New York City has become harder in recent years, but most Japanese or Asian supermarkets sell the harder, preserved—but still delicious—small pieces individually wrapped. These types of mochi, either the pounded or the industrial version, are what people often eat on New Year’s. The most common dish is in ozōni, a dashi-based soup, or simply grilled up on a rack and served wrapped in seaweed with soy sauce in a dish called isobe maki.
The Japanese New Year is the most important holiday in Japan. From January 1st to January 3rd, most businesses in Japan are closed—in fact, it’s considered bad luck for people to work and clean. Individuals living away from family travel back home to spend the holiday, spending time eating mikan around a heated table or making their first shrine visit of the year, a tradition called hatsumōde.
There are many sweet forms of mochi as well, echoing the same values of health and abundance. Many of these all fall under the term wagashi, meaning Japanese confectionery. The anko, red bean paste often used in these mochi, is quite sweet, so the wagashi are usually paired with green tea.
The aptly named sakuramochi is made from sweet mochi dyed pink, filled with red bean paste, and wrapped in an edible sakura leaf. There are two variants, the original Chōmeiji sakuramochi variant from the Kantō region that includes Tokyo, and the Dōmyōji sakuramochi from the Kansai region that includes Ōsaka and Kyōto. The Chōmeiji sakuramochi uses a thin, crepe-like pancake to wrap the anko. This pancake is made using wheat flour, so it’s technically not mochi, but its chewy texture warrants its name. On the other hand, the Dōmyōji sakuramochi uses Dōmyōji flour, made from glutinous rice that has been steamed, rice, and coarsely ground.
Sakuramochi is served during Hinamarsuri, Girl’s Day. This public holiday celebrates the health and happiness of girls. It’s tradition that small dolls are put on display, and kagamimochi, as well as hishimochi (literally diamond mochi, for its diamond shape), are also placed alongside them. In my home—and most likely in other parts of the world characterized by cramped apartments–there’s not much room to display a whole shelf, so we compromised. My mom hangs up a cross-stitch tapestry depicting a Girl’s Day doll display made by my grandmother instead, which I think is just as cute and homey.
On its counterpart, Kodomono Hi, Children’s Day–formerly Tango no Sekku, which was a celebration of boy’s health only—kashiwamochi is served. These are white sweet mochi wrapped in kashiwa leaves, oak leaves, instead. The oak leaves, unlike their counterpart, are not traditionally eaten.
That’s not all: mochi is also served on Obon, arguably Japan’s second most important holiday. Obon lasts about a week in mid-August, right around the Autumn Equinox. People visit, clean, and bring offerings to graves. It is believed that our dead ancestors return from the land of the dead for a short time during Obon, similar to Día de los Muertos in Mexico.
Ohagi, often offered at graves, is made from sweetened Dōmyōji flour traditionally surrounded with anko, sesame seeds, or kinako, roasted soy flour. There are many more variants beyond these flavors, with many regional differences. For instance, eastern regions tend to prefer stronger flavors in foods like black-sesame-flavored ohagi. On the other hand, western regions prefer more mellow flavors, such as green-dried-seaweed-flavored ohagi. Ohagi also has a spring counterpart called botamochi. Botamochi is made with more finely-crushed red bean paste, called koshian, while ohagi is made with the more textured tsubuan. Ohagi is considered a bit of an “old people snack,” despite dating back to the decidedly more recent Edo period (1603 C.E. – 1868 C.E.). It’s a hit or miss for many—a miss for my father—but ohagi is one of my favorites.
It’s common practice to offer some of the food one is eating at the altar for our ancestors–whether it be gifts someone brought from a trip, or simply that day’s dinner–with the belief that they, at the very least, can tell that one’s offered it. Whether one believes that the dead can really visit us or not, when we eat ohagi we are enjoying it along with our family across time. As per my mother’s wisdom, “rice is food for the brain.” So, who knows? Maybe our ancestors have super-powered brains.
Perhaps the most common form of confectionery containing mochi are daifuku, small circular mochi with a sweet filling, usually anko. There are, frankly, a dizzying array of daifuku out there. The most traditional daifuku are the simple white daifuku, sweetened mochi with the anko filling. Other variants include the goma daifuku, with sesame seeds coating the outside (a personal favorite of mine); yomogi daifuku, also known as kusamochi, made using mugwort mixed into the mochi; and mame daifuku, made with red peas mixed into the mochi. More modern versions include fruit daifuku, including ichigo daifuku, with a strawberry and anko filling; and the unorthodox purin daifuku, filled with flan; to name a few. Mochi ice cream, too, is technically a daifuku. The countless iterations of daifuku, and mochi in general, show how beloved mochi is in Japanese culture.
It’s no secret that food is sacred. It nourishes us, but also allows us to connect to one another—there’s a reason why there are so many sayings about food tasting better when eaten with others across cultures. Food can tie us to distant homelands that some have never had the chance to visit, or to families that you can usually only see through a screen. Mochi, with all its various forms and sizes, is a bridge between mainland and diaspora, and hopefully I’ve helped spread its wonders.
Rice, and by extension mochi, is often associated with fertility and abundance. Few people emphasize the religious connections of mochi in the present day, but the core value of gratitude toward food and the connections it brings us still remain. In fact, just until recently, Japanese children were told during lunch, “a child who eats lots [of rice] is a good child”—something my father can attest to.