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Nick Ramsay on December 23rd, 2007

We hopped in Mami’s little pink car and took a drive out to Gujo city with our friend, Mr. H, for some traditional new year mochi making. Mochiツcan be described asツ”steamed rice pounded into a glutinous cake and used as a staple ingredient in a variety of dishes, including desserts”. This seasonal activity is a Japanese custom I hadn’t experienced until today, so I was quick with my camera to snap some picturesツof, and take part in the rice-cake-making ceremony,ツmochitsuki.

Making Japanese rice cakes - mochi

Below is a short video of our mochi-making, which you can also see here on YouTube. Actually, there are some really amazing videos of people making rice cakes on YouTube (especially here and here) which I urge you to watch.

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Comment by Contamination
2007-12-24 01:20:28

Looks good. Last year we made motchi at home with an automated machine that beat the mix until it was soft.

While it tasted quite good, the amount of work involved turned me off participating this year (or in the future…)

Of course you’d know to chew carefully! ;-)

 
Comment by La Flor Subscribed to comments via email
2007-12-24 23:21:30

hmm.. you got me interested in the little pink car. where’s a photo?

Comment by Nick Ramsay
2007-12-25 15:39:55

Ah, Mami’s little pink “Rapan”. I must remember to write about that, but here’s a picture from Google images to tide you over!

 
 
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