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Mochi is made in the same way throughout Japan, but it is preserved and eaten in a myriad of ways that are surprisingly different from locality to locality. In some places, mochi is rolled into balls, in other places it is flattened and cut into squares. It can be simmered, grilled, mixed with other ingredients, and prepared as a sweet or as a condiment. Mochi can be prepared and eaten with such diversity that it has evolved a multitude of food cultures, each unique to a specific area and its customs.
Over the centuries, however, the rich variety of mochi dishes has gradually diminished, and today mochi is primarily eaten only once a year during the New Year holidays. Still, there remain pockets of rice-cultivating communities where mochi is a common, everyday food. The Ichinoseki region in Iwate Prefecture, the third-highest producer of mochi rice in Japan, is one of these pockets—a virtual mochi homeland where one can enjoy as many as 300 different kinds of mochi dishes.
“Ichinoseki even has a mochi calendar marked with as many as 62 events at which mochi is eaten. In addition to these special times, it is also customary to serve mochi dishes at any kind of celebration and even at funerals. In this area, people prefer the soft, gooey mochi that has just been pounded. In the old days people were pounding mochi just about every day, and the young brides of Ichinoseki always included a mortar and mallet in their trousseau. Mochi was a daily food. Today we don’t eat nearly as much mochi as in the past, but we still pound mochi about ten times a year.”
So says Hiroaki Onodera, representative director of Itsukushi-no-sato, an agricultural cooperative. Onodera also happens to be a local authority on mochi.
Mochi takes time to prepare. Mochi rice has to be soaked in water overnight and then steamed before it is placed in a wooden mortar and pounded with a wooden mallet until it attains a soft, smooth, and glutinous consistency. Mochi is pounded for guests, for the family, and for the gods. Mochi has sustained its popularity throughout the ages, in part because it is a food that reflects the Japanese psyche. “Hospitality is at the core of all mochi cooking,” says Nobuyuki Ito, owner of Sansaikan Fujisei, a restaurant specializing in country cooking and famous for its mochi dishes. |
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| “Mochi Honzen.” This is a full-course meal common to the Ichinoseki region and generally served at weddings and funerals. The course consists of various dishes of freshly-pounded mochi mixed with different kinds of ingredients—everything from sweet bean paste to sesame seeds, and natto beans—and is topped off with a mochi soup. Not only is mochi used throughout the course, the different dishes must be eaten in a certain order and special dishes are used for each item, customs that are unusual even for Japan. |
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| Traditionally, mochi is made by pounding hot, steamed mochi rice placed in a hollowed out zelkova wood mortar called an usu. The rice is pounded with a wooden mallet called a kine. But this method is labor-intensive and time consuming, and it is more common today to use an electric mochi-pounding machine. |
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