mochi

In Japan, New Year’s rice cakes are known as mochi. Like Lisu’s New Year’s cakes, they are made from pounded sticky rice. Japanese friends have told us how until recently, just before New Year’s Day, you could hear pounding coming from every house as each family prepared its mochi in a large mortar with a heavy wooden pestle. Nowadays, with more people living in small apartments, the pounding is heard mostly in the countryside and at ceremonies like those held each year in Tokyo, when famous sumo wrestlers perform the ritual pounding of the rice.