Are Japanese People Losing Traditional Eating Habits?

On January 7th, there is a traditional custom called "Nanakusa" and people eat special rice porridge with 7 kinds of vegetables which is shown in the lower right hand side photo. 

"Nana-kusa" directly means "Seven Grass". The seven kinds ingredients for this traditional porridge are exactly decided but most of them are nowadays considered as the weeds rather than vegetables. In ancient times people often took their cooking ingredients from fields, so the custom keeps a vestige of the old eating habits.

During New Year’s holidays, most Japanese people have gatherings with family and friends. Even after the holidays ended people would have New Year's parties until the end of the traditional New Year's celebration period, 7th (or sometimes 15th). Therefore people tend to have lots of food and drinks during the days, and eating rice porridge containing leaf vegetables on January 7th would be a good break for the stomach. So, "Nanakusa" is a custom of an ancestral wisdom.

However, since people just use common vegetables from shops for their daily cooking nowadays, this custom may be becoming a very unfamiliar cooking. Thus, today we can find a detailed instruction in the set of the seven ingredients of "Nanakusa" porridge when we buy it from shops.

As you can see in the instruction paper on the lower left hand side photo, there are illustrations of the seven kind of ingredient plants with the cooking direction. What's more, there is a note to explain about trifling matters of the ingredients. For example, "one of the ingredient leaves might have a black spots on it but it is a natural feature of the grass", or "the other one might contain seeds with it but the seeds are also edible", and so on. 

Perhaps, some people are completely forgetting about old eating habits cooking wild plants and became too picky about unfamiliar food in these days...?

A Recipe Of Japanese New Year's Dishes:How To Cut Kamaboko Fishcake Into Decorative Shapes

Are you interested in Japanese New Year's dishes, "Osechi dishes"? Today, I'd like to introduce one of the easy recipes. It doesn't require too much labor but it can instantly add a New-Year-Celebration feeling on dishes. 

In Japan there are various kind of fish cakes. "Kamaboko" is one of them which is steamed fish-meat in a semi-cylindrical shape, and it is often served as a New Year's dish. You can just slice it to serve, but if it is cut into decorative shapes, they can be a nice accent on New Year's dishes as you can see in the photos on the first row.

Here in the second row and the third row of photos above, I'm introducing 2 kinds of cutting way which look like birds' shape. Since this year is a "Year of Bird" in Japan as I wrote in my previous post on January 3rd, it would be good decorations for the New Year. Even for later years, it would still fit New Year dishes because cranes are one of major lucky symbol animals in Japanese culture. 

Hope you will enjoy trying this decorative cut!

Do You Know A Special Kind Of Tokkuri (Sake Serving Bottole) That Can Chirp?

With Japanese traditional custom, people make a toast and drink Sake to celebrate the New Year even from morning between January 1st and 3rd. Originally the Sake was a special kind of medical drinks called "Toso" or "Otoso". The ingredients were a mixture of Chinese medicines, and people put it into Sake by hoping a longevity and drink for New Year's toast.

You can still find the powder mixture for the traditional medical drinks before New Year, but nowadays many people drink just plain Sake although they still call it "Toso" or "Otoso". The word probably had become a word for new-year-toast Sake. 

By the way, for these occasion people tend to use more old-fashioned Sake set. Traditionally, Sake is served with Sake serving bottles called "Tokkuri", and small Sake cups called "Choko", as you can see in the photos. They are made of ceramics and very useful since Sake can be served with both of cold temperature and hot temperature, and china ware can work well for both condition. During New Year's celebration, when families get together they serve Sake each other with these traditional Sake set and make a toast at home.

As I wrote in my previous post on January 3rd, this year is a "Year of Bird" in Japan. So, I'd like to introduce a special kind of Tokkuri (Sake serving bottle) which would fit to celebrate this New Year. It is shown in the upper right hand side photo and lower photo.  

The Tokkuri (Sake serving bottle) has a little bird on the top. Actually the bird is not only a design. Underneath of the bird there is a hole and with the structure the bottle itself works as a whistle. Every time when it is tilted to serve Sake, the bottle make a sound like the little bird is chirping. 

This kind of Tokkuri (Sake serving bottle) is called "Uguisu Dokkuri". It means "Bush-Warbler's Sake Serving Bottle". It would be a perfect item to serve Sake for this New Year!

If you are interested in the sound of "Uguisu Dokkuri", there is a short video of it below. Please check it to hear how the little bush-warbler chirps!

There Are Many Designs Related To Birds For The New Year's Celebration

In Japan people have been using the 12 animal symbols of the Chinese zodiac, which are shown in lower left end photo, since ancient times. In old times it was applied for many general indications such as direction, time, date, and year, but nowadays it is commonly used only for year indication. This year, 2017, is a "Year of Rooster", so you would see many "Rooster" designs for New Year's celebration.

As you can see in the photos on the upper row, there is a rooster design for 2017 New Year's greeting cards section at a shop, a big votive wooden board with a rooster design for a Shinto shrine, and a rooster figure on a rice cake for a New Year's offering. 

However, the Japanese word of "Year of Rooster" is "Tori-doshi" and actually it just means "Year of Bird" phonetically. Thus people tend to stretch their interpretation and use other kinds of birds designs as same, although they know it originally meant "rooster". 

Please look at the right end photo on the lower row. It is a display windows of a department store for the new year located in Shibuya. The left-hand side window shows "A Happy New Year" in Kanji (Chinese characters), and the right-hand side window shows many Kanji (Chinese characters) for various birds. The photo would be too small to read, but here are characters for crane, hawk, swan, heron, bush warbler...

You might think they seem to be too complicated characters to understand. Actually we don't have to know all of them to recognize the characters mean some kinds of birds. Kanji (Chinese characters) are ideograms, and there is a part of Kanji (Chinese characters) means "bird". So when passersby find the part in these complicated characters, they can tell they means different kinds of birds even though they don't know all of them exactly. Perhaps, some people would slow down to read them, then it can be a good idea for a display window. 

If you find some bird designs after the New Year, they may be designs which meant this "Tori-Doshi (Year of Bird)"!

New Year Greeting In 2017, Happy New Year!!

A Happy New Year!!
These dishes in the photo above are Japanese traditional New Year's dishes called "Osechi Dishes". In Japan, families and friends get together and enjoy these dishes with Sake during New Year celebration period (between January 1st and 3rd). 

Actually the "Osechi Dishes" would be different in almost each family. Even in one family it can be different because there are huge variety for these traditional cooking and almost every legion has some local special dishes/styles. So the dishes in the photos are just my tradition and it's not completely same with my mother's since I added some dishes I'd like to have and also took in my husband's family's tradition. 

However, in the dishes above there are many typical traditional Osechi dishes which many families cook as standards. If you are interested in each dishes, please check my previous post in 2016, "Introduction of Major Osechi Dishes" (Please click here)! 

Hope you will enjoy my blogs in 2017!