Mochitsuki

Hi everyone,

This past weekend, I went to a Mochitsuki event at Takada Elementary. For those who don't know, Mochitsuki is "mochi making", and mochi is a chewy rice ball made from pounded sticky rice. The traditional way to make mochi is to pound the sticky rice with a large wooden mallet while another person flips the sticky blob around in the giant mortar. Here's me taking my turn on the mallet:

The mallet itself weighs somewhere between 5 and 10 kg, so it's not an easy task. The flipper has no walk-in-the-park either, as they need to grab the freshly cooked and scalding hot rice with their bare hands. They're also constantly scared that an inexperienced pounder (like me) might smash them over the head with a wooden sledgehammer. You can see the woman in the video flinch a few times...

After the rice has been pounded into a sticky white blob, the mass is transferred to a table where people break it apart and roll smaller mochi balls in rice flour. We got to try our hand at it, and my jacket ended up covered in stubborn rice flour.

Preparing mochi with the moms

At the end, we finally got to devour our creations. It was an all-you-can eat mochi extravaganza! The main course was mochi in a vegetable and chicken soup, which I believe is called "zouni" （雑煮）. After a few bowls of that, we headed to desert, which was mochi covered in a sweet soybean powder called "kinako" (黄粉).

Mochi soup - zouni

Mochi in kinako

In the end, we were stuffed to the brim with amazingly delicious hand-made mochi and had fun playing with the elementary school kids in the beautiful weather. Thanks a bunch, 高田小!!

Until next time...