M
ochitsuki (mochi-pounding) is
a Japanese tradition that has
become integrated into the local New
Year’s celebrations here in Hawai‘i.
Generally a day-long activity, it is a
way of welcoming the New Year and
ensuring good luck and longevity for
the years to come.
The mochitsuki celebration typically begins the day before with the
washing of rice, which is then left to
soak overnight and steamed the next
morning. The cooked rice is pounded
into mochi with a wooden mallet in a
stone mortar until it becomes smooth
and sticky. The mochi is then dusted
generously with mochiko (sweet rice
flour) and shaped into small buns.
Mochi can be eaten with various toppings, fried with butter, or, most notably, in ozoni—a Japanese New Year’s
soup. The ingredients and recipe for
ozoni vary, but one thing remains the
same: those sticky little mochi balls at
the bottom of the bowl are filled with
happiness and good fortune for the
new year.
Mochitsuki, as I’ve come to know it,
usually begins around 8:30 a.m. in the
kitchen with me and my cousins never quite able to remember just how to
cut the vegetables for the ozoni. Then
it’s about five hours of chopping,
grating, boiling, pounding, kneading, shaping, and, of course, eating.
Mochi-pounding the “old-fashioned
way” always makes me look to the upcoming New Year with a fond sense
of appreciation for all the hard work
that goes into both making mochi and
maintaining a strong family tradition.
Now, as the tradition goes, we can
pound all the mochi we want and
eat ozoni until it’s coming out of our
ears, but this year, as I listened to the
steady thwack-thwack-thwack outside, I watched as my sister helped
make her first batch of ozoni while
my 90-year-old grandmother played
with my baby cousin in a house that
has seen over 40 years of mochitsuki
tradition. And then I realized something. This is what good luck is really
all about. ■