Hello, everyone, and welcome to my blog! I am very excited about the upcoming Asian Area Studies course, and I felt that it seemed only right to do my first post on one of the many amazing aspects of Japanese culture: the food. As someone with quite a bit of a sweet tooth, mochi have always been one of my favorite dishes, and the history of mochi is really quite an interesting one! While we know it as usually being filled with ice cream or chocolate here in the states, in Japan, it is a little bit different (although the ice cream and chocolate mochi are still available there and immensely popular.)
Mochi were typically made at the beginning of the year as part of New Year's festival celebrations, and, while the exact origin is uncertain, have been mentioned in historic documents as early as 1070. (Asian Art Museum) The process to making mochi dumplings, or mochitsuki (which means, "full moon"), for the full name, is fairly laborious:
"Traditionally, glutinous rice is washed and soaked overnight on the evening before the pounding. The next morning the rice is steamed and placed in the usu (large mortar) where it is pounded with a kine (wooden mallet). Once the mass is soft and smooth, it is pulled into various sizes and shapes." (Asian Art Museum)
To celebrate the new year, these little cakes were offered to the kani (deities) and were known as kagami-mochi (mirror mochi) in that setting- they were served with a little slice of bitter orange and were considered lucky for the New Year! (Asian Art Museum)
Today, mochi are typically served as desserts or sweet snacks, and can be served with either ice cream, pastry fillings, such as a chocolate or strawberry cream, or they can be filled with the traditional red bean paste.
Link: http://education.asianart.org/explore-resources/background-information/new-years-japan-mochi-pounding
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