Mirror-shaped Rice Cakes For The New Year (2005-01-06)
Japanese eat rice cakes called mochi all year round and especially on New Year's Day when they eat a special kind of soup with mochi in it known as Ozouni, but these rice cakes are usually rectangular in shape. The special round rice cakes called Kagamimochi (which literally means mirror rice cakes because in the old days mirrors were always round, hence the name) are displayed in the house during the New Year as a mark for the Year God to descend.
These Kagamimochi usually sits on a piece of paper and decorated
with a mandarin on top. They are not just for display purpose,
people actually break them into pieces right at the family altar or on
the floor and then put into soup to be eaten on the11th and 20th of
January.
Mochi is made of sticky rice and is very sticky and chewy when
heated. Every year some elderly Japanese choke to death by mochi
lodged in their throats. People need to pray to the Year God for
a safe New Year before they tuck into that bowl of mochi soup.
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