Making Mochi in Japan

Japanese Food Culture: Mochi もち

Mark Brazil

Making Mochi | Mochi Combinations

A rhythmic, solid "thump thump" is the sound of a massive wooden pestle being driven down into an even larger wooden mortar. In other parts of the world the sound might accompany the pounding of harvested grain to make flour, but in Japan it is a once common, now rare sound associated with ceremony of mochitsuki - the making of mochi.

Especially significant as a traditional food eaten during the Japanese New Year's celebrations, mochi was once a commonly produced food at home.

With labour-saving mechanical devices available to produce the stuff with little effort, and with so many shops selling prepared mochi, not many people these days have experience of wielding the mortar themselves, except perhaps at a traditional festival.

Making Mochi

Raising the wooden mallet (ki-ne) and bringing it down into the mortar (usu) onto the mass of rice, while missing the fingers of the assistant mochi maker is perhaps the easiest part of the long labour-intensive process, while producing the rice in the first place and then moulding the resulting sticky paste into the end product are the hard parts.

An especially glutinous type of polished rice is first soaked over night then steamed and when cooked deposited in a great heap in the bottom of the mortar. Between repeated strikes at the rice mass with the mallet, an assistant alternates by reaching in to the mortar with wet fingers, turning the hot mass quickly and occasionally adding a little water as required before the next heavy blow falls. Working together, the beater and the turner establish a rhythm that is a joy to watch and soon produces finely grained rice dough, which is easily moulded.

The end product is a smooth dumpling into which sweet bean paste has been pressed

This heavy wooden mortar (usu) is built to take the daily pounding of mochi at Yoroushi Dai-ichi Hotel

Mochi Combinations

The dough may then be rolled and cut into thick sheets for drying and cutting, or moulded when fresh, perhaps rolled in roasted soy bean flour for immediate consumption, or filled with a dollop of sweet red bean paste and crimped into a nutritious and filling dumpling.

Mochi has the benefit of being both highly concentrated and well-lasting, making it an easier food to travel with than cooked rice. Because it keeps for longer it has, since the 14th century, been a preferred food during the New Year celebrations, when traditionally fresh food is not cooked each day.

A chunk of mochi is a traditional part of the Japanese New Year soup known as O-zoni. In some regions this square of mochi is grilled before being added to the soup, in other areas, soft, boiled mochi is preferred. Whatever the form though, this white square of glutinous mochi in the clear broth is something of a challenge to eat, as it can be both difficult to chew and difficult to swallow.

For the elderly it can be something of a hazard and each New Year is welcomed in with an unwelcome spate of hospital admissions of people chocking or suffocating on partly swallowed, partly inhaled sticky mochi.

The safest response to a mochi-induced choking fit, so popular wisdom has it, is not the Heimlich manoeuvre, which can injure the elderly and fail to eject the offending sticky mochi, but a household appliance.

A vacuum cleaner is almost invariably close to hand in every Japanese home, and speedy application of its suction can quickly free the victim of the pounded glutinous rice mass blocking the victim's airways!

An alternative soup containing mochi, which is a very warming treat in winter is Oshiruko. This thick, sweet soup made of sweet azuki beans containes pieces mochi and is a popular food served at winter festivals. A trip to the early February Sapporo Snow Festival is hardly complete without a bowl of warming Oshiruko.

Once confined to New Year, the hotel now demonstrates mochi pounding to guests each day, and sends each guest off with several hand made dumplings

Preparing the rice involves kneading it first, before the pounding begins

Once apparently a battlefield food of samurai, then a traditional New Year food, mochi has expanded widely into the Japanese food environment and can now be found in various forms of confectionary and even ice cream.

Flavoured with the finely diced leaves of mugwort (a kind of wormwood or Artemisia) kusa mochi cakes are green and pleasantly aromatic.

Stuffed with walnuts they make finely flavoured kurumi mochi. Commonly formed into daifuku filled with sweetened bean paste (either red or white), this approach has now been applied to ice cream, with soft vanilla ice covered with a thin coating of plain mochi.

In any form, mochi is a filling food much revered for its long history in Japan, despite its somewhat sobering side as having a significant impact on senior mortality around New Year!

Related Japan Articles

Japan Seasons

Japan Weather

Japan's Natural History

Japan Rainfall

Rain Chains

Japanese Gardens

Japan's Culture of Gift Giving

Text + images by Mark Brazil

Books on Japan Travel