New Year 2012 FOOD

My apologies to anyone reading this who is actually Japanese and knows what SHOULD be eaten for New Year in Japan. I did the best I could with the limited knowledge I have. The following food may not be traditionally prepared, but hopefully I was going the right direction with it. Because there is was so much food involved it deserves its own post.

To start things off, we made sure almost every day of Lis's visit was filled with Mochi. Delicious mochi. As you may recall, mochi is a pounded rice cake. It can be eaten savory: grilled or added to soups or eaten sweet, with red bean paste in the middle or red bean AND a strawberry. There are other variations as well. All delicous.


New Year's Eve: Soba
I am not sure how soba is suppose to be prepared for the New Year, but I know you are suppose to eat it. My version was a soup using the stock that came with the noodles plus vegetables that didn't seem too out of place in a Japanese dish. Note that my presentation skills are still somewhat lacking.

Apple Bunnies
This has nothing to do with New Years, but they are a staple of Japanese lunch boxes and I was having no luck describing them verbally to Lis. My solution? Buy and apple and show her. I don't think she was quite seeing how this equalled a plate of bunnies. Can you see them?

A Little Bump for Grandpa Pieterick
While the coming hike kept us off alcohol the evening of New Year's Eve, Russell and I did toast Grandpa Pieterick with our shots of brandy.

New Year's Morning: Toasted Flax Seed Peanut Butter from Trader Joes
Thanks to Lis, we had gloriously delicious peanut butter on our toast, brewed some tea for the thermos and hit the trail. At the top? We had dried persimmons and various other snacks we had hauled up with us. That's a persimmon going down the hatch in the photo. You can tell by the grin. None of our hiking provisions count as traditional.

Plum Wine:
Russell and I finally broke out our plum wine that we set aside last spring. I'm pretty sure we posted about the process at the time. You are suppose to let the wine sit for 6 months to 2 years. 6 months was right at the New Year, and since we had a guest it seemed fitting. The verdict? Wow! Its so easy to make awesome plum wine! It was equal or better than anything we have had before, which gives us confidence to try making more - perhaps with variations.

Osechi: You saw the pictures from the previous post, but here are the boxes in close-up glory. I may not love everything in osechi, but it sure is fun to eat so many tiny and varied things. Maybe next year I'll make it myself? I wouldn't wish that on guests, though, so it will depend on whether anyone is visiting.


This friend is a salted and grilled breen fish - known as Tai in Japan. (I think). These are usually grilled in such a way that their one fin is sticking straight up and their tail is curled up. I'm not sure of the significance, but that is the way its done. Ours followed tradition, but its not easy to see.


This box has honey grilled pork, grilled chicken, boiled oysters, salmon roe, crunchy little fishies, and kurikinton - which is a yellow yam and chestnut paste - this one with three sweet chestnuts sitting on top.


This box had mushrooms, bamboo shoot, some sort of celery-like vegetable, carrots, burdock root, sweet black soybeans (both small and large), lotus root, pink and white fish cake, grated daikon salad and some sort of shoot that is suppose to help with new beginnings.


This final box included different forms of mochi, a form of candied walnut with bonito flakes cooked in, grilled tuna (buri), crunchy fish egg sacs (the long yellow things), a rose made of smoked salmon, several variations on sweet egg omelet and some sort of weird meat roll.

Our osechi was enjoyed with liberal amounts of green tea and plum wine. It was no wonder Russell and I couldn't move afterwards. After a long nap, I suggested going downtown to see Ikuta shrine again, this time in full New Year's swing. I knew there would be food stands, but we were still too full from the osechi. We bought mochi with bean paste and strawberries in the middle and headed home. We saved our treats for breakfast the next day. We also made ozoni on January 2nd. I believe I have pictures posted from last year, but I forgot to take any this year. The version of ozoni I make was learned from a friend last year. Ozoni comes in many forms. it is a soup that you eat around New Years and I'm pretty sure all variations contain savory mochi and red carrots. Probably also some sort of mushroom. From there, though, recipes vary. Ours had thinly sliced pork, white miso, leeks, mushrooms, red carrot and mochi. So delicious.

And that ends the auspicious (and less than auspicious) foods for the New Year. If I get around to it, I will have another food post with other treats we enjoyed during Lis' stay. Japan is all about the food. The ancient temples aren't so bad, either. Stay tuned.

P.S. Thanks to Lis for sharing her photos. She tended to have much nicer ones than I did!