All About Mochi

Well I was going to post some pictures of the December OSC event, but I looked at them again, and they're really bad. I mean really really bad. The event was a Christmas party (surprise?) at the restaraunt on base, and it's really hard to get good pictures in there. If you use a flash, they all come out super dark, and so I didn't, but the result is really blurry pictures of some really pretty fan dancing. So you'll have to imagine the fan dancers who came to perform. We were also visited by Santa, who made a valiant effort to get everyone there to be a little more outgoing. We resisted, though, so he finally gave up and gave us all our presents (we did a really simple gift exchange). I got sushi shaped ornaments for the Christmas tree that I swear I'll have next year. They're very cute.

Anyway, on Sunday our Japanese neighbors had a party in the parking area outside their house (next to the old tako stand). This is highly unusual behavior for our Japanese neighbors, so I spent a good deal of my day spying on them as I casually passed. The first time, when we left for church, they had a small wood stove set out and a roaring fire going in it. The next time, when we came back from church, they had something set out to steam on the fire, which wasn't threatening to destroy the whole house anymore. In each of these cases, two or three people were standing near the fire supervising, but it could have been no big deal.

Most intriguing of all was when I took Dory to the park that afternoon. By then a ton of people were hanging around, and many of them had plates of food. Most were gathered around a huge wooden barrel set up just far enough back into the parking area that I couldn't see what was inside without being obviously nosey. Two people stood on opposite sides of this barrel holding wooden hammer-like things that were may be as long as my arm. They would raise these over their heads and slam them into the contents of the barrel in rhythm, apparently mashing something up. I was fascinated, but Dory was terrified, so I went back inside. All afternoon, I could hear the sound of those mallets beating the contents of that barrel. By evening, everyone was gone.

So at my adult class that night, I described what I saw to my students and asked them what the heck was going on. It took them a few minutes to figure out what I was describing, but they finally got it worked out and informed me that what I saw was the old fashioned way to make mochi, a traditional Japanese New Year's food. Apparently, most people now either buy it premade or have a mochi machine that makes the stuff at the push of a button. However, some community groups or school groups still make it at this time of year by hand, just to let people see how it used to be done.
Mochi, I knew before this experience, is a rice paste that is traditionally eaten around New Years. It usually comes shaped in a round ball and is a little bit sweet in flavor. It's simple and pretty good. Every year, most families used to place two balls of mochi stacked with an orange (a small one) on top on a family alter for the ancestors or the gods. They also eat it at New Years celebrations. My students informed me that in the old days (may be 20 or 30 years ago) people would make mochi by steaming rice and then mashing in barrels like the one I saw (my students say that it was actually a small version of the old ones), adding water occasionally, in much the same way that one might make mashed potatoes on a large scale. Then you form it into whatever shape you so desire (it's fairly doughy) and add whatever ingredients you happen to like.
I also learned that different regions of Japan add different things to their mochi when they make it. Since basic mochi is just rice, it can be flavored in a multitude of ways. In Kyushu, the tendency is to make it sweeter by adding a little sugar or red beans. It can also be baked to make it a little crunchy, or rolled in various seasonings. In other regions, they make it saltier. One student said that her favorite way to eat mochi is dipped in a mixture of soy sauce and sugar. Another said she liked it rolled in seaweed powder. Some people put red beans inside and bake it. It really just depends on what you like, I guess.
Finally, I learned that mochi is made using a special kind of rice (mochi rice), which is the stickiest, wettest rice you can buy. So if you go to an Asian market and buy yourself some mochi rice, you're getting the stuff they use to make this rice paste stuff, and you should expect it to cook up super wet, not suitable for fried rice, but excellent for onigiri.
As a side note to the mochi story, I learned that when Japanese people look at a full moon, the craters and what not on it look like a rabbit making mochi to them. I told my students that I would look for that the next time I saw a full moon, and they doubtfully told me it takes a lot of imagination to see. I still thought it was very creative, though. Way cooler than a face. I can't say for sure that my students learned much from me Sunday night, but I learned a lot from them, so it was a fun class. Now I get a whole week off to rest before the New Year rolls around. I think I'll have to go buy some mochi.