Making Mochi

Mochi is a traditional Japanese New Year's food made from pounded rice that is basically turned into a sticky dough. Although mochi is found throughout the year (covered in chocolate, wrapped around ice cream, in soup as dumplings, grilled and covered with fermented soybean sauce, etc.) at New Years there is a special ceremony for making it known as Mochitsuki. This method models the ancient technique for making the gummy treat. Today, I was invited to a Mochitsuki event coordinated by the PTA of my two schools.

Steaming the rice over a wood burning stove

Pounding the rice into a glutinous mass. The lady on the right would duck in and knead the dough between each of my swings of the super heavy kine as I attempted not to whack her head. (What you don't see in this picture are my cheerleaders -- some of my 2nd and 3rd year JHS boys laughing at my pounding technique!)

The PTA rolling the mochi dough around sweet bean paste and in soybean powder. This way was actually quite tasty.


Eating it!!
(okay, this picture was actually posed. The vice principal and principal of my elementary school insisted that I tried mochi covered in soy sauce with ground radish on top -- I don't like radishes by the way, but why is another story in and of itself! Anyway, as I am attempting to politely swallow this globby concoction my students asked me if I liked it and I gave them a truthful response. Then, one of their parents offers to take a picture and insists that I eat the mochi while my girls smile. They were so cute as they kept on saying, "not real, Emily not real, you don't eat!!)