Mochi is the Japanese food that is traditionally eaten during New Years. It’s very sticky rice that is beaten into a paste in a wooden bowl with a mallet.
On my New Years trip with my friend Hiro to Nagoya, I got the chance to participate in making Mochi A family near the apartment we were staying at was having a family BBQ. They are friends of Hiro’s parents and they invited us over for some Mochi. Two guys were pounding the rice in a wooden bowl while the bother would move the Mochi around each time the mallets were lifted out of the bowl. It was quite the rhythm they had going.
Once they were done, the mother turned to me and asked, in Japanese of course, if I would like to try and help make Mochi. I decided to give the family some comic relief by being the foreigner (that had no idea what he was doing) that would attempt at pounding the Mochi.
While it looked rather simple, it was a lot of hard work. By the end of it all I was sweating and my arms were incredibly sore. But the pay off was worth it, we shared the entire bowl of delicious Mochi. It was put into a soup and also used as a sweet dessert with cinnamon. It was an incredible experience that I soon won’t forget.
Making great memories! Priceless.
It was a lot of fun!