Seasonal Festivals with Rice-cake Sweets in Season

Winter is still here, but spring has come just around the corner. Japan has distinctive four seasons and each season has its own festivals. In spring, on the 3^rd of March, we have Doll Festival called Hina Matsuri, or Girls’ Day.

This is a special day for girls. Families especially having girls display special hina dolls, which wear beautiful ancient court costumes. The female doll’s costume is called “juuni-hitoe (twelve-layered ceremonial robe)”. Even today at the imperial family’s wedding ceremony, princess wears this “juuni-hitoe”. This day at families they celebrate the growth of girls, and wish for their health and happiness. The origin of this festival is from China, where people used to make dolls from paper and throw them into the river, wishing driving away evil spirits or bad luck from their bodies, they say.

There are some special foods for the festival. Traditional Japanese rice-cake sweets in season are one of them. They are “sakura-mochi” and “kusa-mochi”. Both of them are rice-cake with sweet beans paste inside.

“Sakura-mochi” is wrapped with a pickled cherry blossom leaf. There are two types mainly, such as Tokyo-style (above left) and Kansai-style (above right). Flour to make rice-cake is different. For Kansai-style, doumyouji flour is used. So Kansai-style “sakura-mochi” is usually called “doumyouji”. We eat “sakura-mochi” after taking off its wrapped leaf, but   sometimes we eat Tokyo-style “sakura-mochi” with its wrapped leaf. The leaf is a little bit salty, which tastes a good combination with sweet beans inside.  

The other seasonal rice-cake sweet, “Kusa-mochi” (below centre) includes a kind of edible grass in spring called “yomogi”, together with sweet beans paste inside. The colour of green represents health, driving away evil spirits.

At hina-dolls platform, we often see a diamond-shaped, three-coloured rice-cake called “hishimochi” displayed. Originally it used to have two-layered, white and green. White is the colour of rice and green is the colour of “yomogi”. People in those days used to pray for their children’s good future, offering things to drive away evil spirits.

If you come around here Koto district, one of the best choices to visit is Fukagawa Edo Museum (https://www.kcf.or.jp/fukagawa/), where you can experience ordinary people’s everyday life, backing to Edo period, about 350 years ago. Of course, you can enjoy each seasonal festival display including Hina Matsuri.

After visiting the museum, why don’t you try “sakura-mochi” and “kusa-mochi”, if it is spring. I think they must be good with black coffee or tea, as well as Japanese green tea. Japanese sweets are good with a little bit bitter drinks.

by MS