The Japanese Table Back Issues
New Year’s Delicious Fortune
To welcome the deities who are believed to bring happiness and good fortune in the New Year, unique dishes fit for the gods are prepared. Japan’s special New Year’s cuisine, osechi ryori, comprises not only special offerings, but simple dishes enjoyed by everyone during the traditional three-day holiday.
In osechi ryori, one ingredient shared in common by both types of dishes – offerings and daily food – is rice. Glutinous rice is steamed and pounded in a mortar to make mochi, which is then formed into small round cakes, or spread out in sheets and cut into blocks. These cakes are eaten in various ways, and are an essential ingredient of the special New Year’s soup called zoni.
New Year’s Harmony
The rice is also made into kagami mochi, an auspicious New Year’s offering to welcome the gods, displayed as a tangible wish for harmony within the family. Two large round, thick mochi cakes – perfect, round allusions to ideal happiness, one slightly smaller than the other – are stacked and placed on a small tray of unfinished cedar. The cakes are decorated differently depending on the region, but generally, a broad strand of kobu (dried kelp) is laid over the mochi so that it droops down over the front; in Tokyo, the kelp is sometimes replaced by a boiled Japanese spiny lobster. Across the top of the cakes, peeled, dried persimmons strung on a bamboo skewer are clustered in groups of two, six and two – this arrangement evokes the auspicious phrase niko-niko naka mutsumajiku, literally, “two-two, six in-between,” or “smiling and happy, we get along fine.” Crowning the very top of the arrangement is a citrus fruit called daidai with leaves still attached to the stem.
On New Year’s morning, family members gather around the table and greet each other formally, and congratulate each other on the arrival of the New Year. The morning meal centers around festive zoni soup. Zoni is made with different ingredients depending on the region or on family custom, but throughout most of the country it is a simple, clear soup flavored with soy sauce. Considered strictly a New Year’s dish from the time of the Muromachi period (1336-1573), zoni is traditionally accompanied by side dishes called kumitsuke, which from around the sixteenth century included noshi (strips of stretched and dried abalone), kazunoko (herring roe), kobu and shrimp.
Boxed Delights
Around the middle of the Edo period (1603-1867), it became general practice for these side dishes to be served in square boxes stacked in sets of two or more, called jubako. In the Konoike family of Osaka, said to be the wealthiest in the country at that time, a set of New Year’s jubako served during the early 1700s consisted of four layers. The first layer in the stack contained kazunoko pickled or marinated with soy sauce; the second held tataki-gobo (burdock root); the third was filled with soy sauce sugar-glazed gomame (small sardines); and the fourth layer featured a variety of foods, including kuromame (sweet-simmered black beans), boiled kuwai (sprouted arrowhead bulbs), boiled kobu rolls, plum wine-flavored ginger-root pickles and salt-pickled plums. Even for this wealthy family, then, the festive New Year’s fare was far simpler than that served in most ordinary homes today.
Kazunoko, dried roe, is taken from herring, which are thought to be a harbinger of spring. The egg sacs are soaked in water to soften them and then served in a sauce of soy sauce, mirin and bonito stock. Tataki-gobo is made by parboiling burdock root, then pounding it with a wooden pestle. The dish becomes a kind of salad flavored with a vinegar-based sauce with sesame seeds. Gomame are small crispy sardines that have been coated with a sweet sauce made of soy sauce, sugar and mirin. Kobu-maki are made by rolling small pieces of dried herring in strips of kobu and boiling them in a sweet soy-sauce based sauce. Kuromame are black beans that have also been simmered to taste sweet.
Health, Long Life and Prosperity
In the latter part of the Edo period, kazunoko, gomame and kuromame were the three major New Year’s side dishes, and each carried specific connotations and associations. Eating kazunoko, packed with eggs, was believed to assure many children and flourishing progeny. Dried small sardines were part of the natural fertilizer used in fields, and were eaten as a way of praying for a rich harvest – but they are also rich in calcium. Kuromame contain a rich supply of vegetable protein. A homonym of mame means “healthy and hard-working,” so eating “mame” was thought to assure that a person would be diligent and remain in good health.
Burdock root has been part of the Japanese diet for a long time, but it is not well-known elsewhere in the world. Tataki-gobo is a dish served mainly in Osaka and Kyoto; it is rich in fiber and helps control blood-sugar and high blood pressure. It is also valued as a digestive aid. Kuwai (arrowhead bulb) is a water plant. The bulbs are peeled and boiled with seasonings, and have a distinctive astringent taste and soft texture. Kobu appears frequently in New Year’s dishes because it is reminiscent of the word yorokobu, to be happy. It contains a plentiful supply of alginic acid and helps rid the body of excess salt.
By the late 1800s, the variety of foods packed into jubako boxes had increased, and a boiled dish combining sato-imo (taro), konnyaku (yam cakes), lotus root and tofu was added. These ingredients, simmered slowly in bonito stock seasoned with soy sauce, sugar and mirin, make a flavorful dish that keeps for several days
In fact, osechi ryori was originally devised so that it would keep during the three days during which housewives were traditionally freed from stoking the kitchen fire. These foods were also nourishing, and by making them part of the festive fare eaten on the occasion of the New Year, simplicity and frugality were encouraged, along with a healthy and long life.
Author’s Profile
Ayao Okumura was born in 1937 in Wakayama Prefecture. As professor at Kobe-Yamate University, he is a specialist in traditional Japanese cuisine. Professor Okumura is also the owner of a cooking studio, Douraku-tei, and is known for his authentic reproductions of historic Japanese dishes and menus. He has authored various texts, including Himiko no Shokutaku (Yoshikawa Kobunkan).
