We visited Suzuki-san's house in Shirakawa on December 30, to experience making of handmade noodle and rice cake.
(Very soft and tasty rice cakes!)
At last, we could try to make rice cake.
It was a fairly tough job to pound steamed rice, so Yuki pounded a mortar, instead of the rice because a pestle was very heavy and she was very nervous. (oops!)
"Madame, I am sorry!"
"It's OK, because it is heavy."
With such a talk, we had a pleasant time.
Shinobu was struggling with stuffing rice cake with beam jam.
"Madame, beam jam is coming out. What should I do?"
"Don't worry, it's your first time, so it's good".
By saying that, Suzuki-san always smiled at us. With those kind words, we tried many times and finally we made a big improvement.
Look at this photo!
The most delicious rice cake was a "Sweet potato & wormwood stuffed rice paste". It's easy to make it. Let's try.
Next, we tried to make handmade noodle. This handmade noodle is different from other available noodles. Because the noodle contains a yam. So it was hard to make it, especially to knead. After we understand the difficulty of making it, we cannot complain about the quality of each noodle.
First, grind yams and mix them with buckwheat flour, wheat flour and egg, and knead with full power. Concentrate on it. Make a dough flat using a roller. When we saw the dough getting flat, we felt powerless. After all the efforts, we made a very tasty noodle.
First, we looked into a rice cake soup. A rice cake soup in Osori contains green vegetables and chicken. A rice cake soup in Nishina contains the same materials as Osori, but green seaweed and dried bonito are put in it.
Next, we looked into the customs.
In Osori, there is a custom that men cut burdocks, carrots and radishes into slices and put it with washed rice on a small plate, and offer it on the altar.
In Nishina, there is a custom called "Hatsushio" that people go to the sea early in the morning of January 1st, ladle seaweed and purify the house by throwing salty water with the seaweed around the house. Anyway, after all, on new year's day, it is the happiest time to spend with all the family. On the first of January, there is nothing pleasant than eating mother's dishes and having a chat all together. This is common everywhere in Japan. How about you?
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