Japanese New Year’s Mochi Celebration Have you ever celebrated the New Year with a Mochi Festival? Today was my first time. No, I am not in Japan, but on Bainbridge Island just across Puget Sound from of Seattle Washington. It’s a bright, cold winter’s day at Island Wood, an environmental education center, and the community is celebrating the coming New Year with the Japanese custom of making and eating mochi. . So what is mochi and how do you make it? After washing sweet rice, you soak it overnight. You then steam the rice in wooden boxes over an open fire until it’s sticky. You place the hot glutinous rice in a large usu or stone mortar. Now comes the exciting part. The tool used to pound the rice is huge, the size of an
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