Mochi (餅) is a soft, chewy, stretchy rice cake. To make it, you pound steamed sticky rice into a smooth, sticky mass. On its own, mochi tastes mild, so it works like a blank canvas. You can wrap it around sweet bean paste, grill it until it puffs and blisters, drop it into soup or dust it with roasted soybean flour. Part of the fun is its stretch: mochi pulls into long threads.
How it is made
Traditional mochi comes from mochitsuki (餅つき), a shared ritual that is almost a sport. Someone puts steamed mochigome, sticky rice, into a big wooden or stone mortar. One person pounds it with a heavy mallet. Between blows, a partner reaches in, with amazing nerve, to fold and wet the mass. Pound, turn, pound: this rhythm is a familiar sight at New Year and at local festivals. Today machines make most everyday mochi. But the pounding lives on as a much-loved seasonal event.
Ritual and season
Mochi belongs to the turn of the year. At New Year, families display kagami-mochi (鏡餅), two round cakes stacked on top of each other with a bitter orange on top. It is an offering to the gods. In January the family breaks it up and eats it. The New Year soup, ozōni, almost always contains mochi. But mochi also calls for real care. The same stickiness that makes it delicious can make people choke. Every January the news reports deaths among elderly people. It reminds everyone to cut mochi small and chew it well. Through the rest of the year, mochi marks the seasons. Spring brings green kusa-mochi (草餅), flavoured with the herb mugwort. On the Doll Festival, a girls' holiday on March 3, families eat pink, white and green hishimochi.
Words & idioms to take away
Idioms & proverbs to carry away
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餅: the character for the rice cake itself. The word for making it, mochitsuki (餅つき), literally means "mochi pounding."
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餅は餅屋 (mochi wa mochiya): "for mochi, go to the mochi shop." In other words, leave each job to its expert, because the specialist always does it best.