Mochi

Mochitsuki, pounding rice cakes, is a traditional year-end event in families, neighbourhoods, schools and shrines. Steamed rice is placed in a large mortar (usu) of wood or stone, and one person swings a heavy wooden mallet (kine) while another turns and wets the dough between blows, a rhythm that requires trust and timing. The finished mass is torn into pieces and rolled into rounds or pressed flat to be cut into blocks.

Today most households buy mochi or use an electric mochi maker, but communal pounding remains popular around New Year.

At New Year, mochi takes centre stage. Kagami mochi, two flat rounds of mochi stacked and topped with a bitter orange (daidai), is set up in homes and shrines as an offering to the deity of the new year. On kagami biraki, usually 11 January, it is broken with a mallet rather than cut, and eaten.

Ozōni, the New Year soup containing mochi, varies more by region than almost any other dish. In much of eastern Japan, grilled square mochi is served in a clear dashi and soy broth; in Kyoto and parts of Kansai, boiled round mochi is served in white miso soup. Some families add chicken, fish, vegetables or local seafood, and a few regions use sweet red-bean mochi.

Many wagashi, Japanese confections, are based on mochi or on dough made from glutinous rice flour. They are often filled with sweet red-bean paste (anko) and tied to the seasons. Some confections called mochi are not made from rice at all.

Hardened mochi is grilled until it puffs and then eaten with soy sauce and nori (isobeyaki), with sweetened soy flour (kinako), in red-bean soup (oshiruko or zenzai), or added to hot pots and udon (chikara udon, 'strength udon').

Mochi is sticky and hard to swallow, and every New Year emergency services report cases of choking, mostly among older people. Fire departments advise cutting mochi into small pieces, eating slowly, taking a drink first, and eating with others present.