Mochi Soup and New Years!

by 42 Comments

I know it’s a couple days late, but to usher in the new year, I thought I’d make some mochi soup and sing you a New Years song! Mochi soup (ozoni | お雑煮) is eaten mostly during the New Years, though apparently it used to be more of a Samurai-only cuisine, cooked up on the battlefield. The version I made would have to be for a pretty poor samurai, because all it consisted of was bonito soup-base, shoyu (soy sauce), and mochi. Wasn’t all that bad, though.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Jcgz8qaCc']

The crazy thing about Mochi soup is that every year 5-10 people die from choking deaths. What a terrible way to go. You’re ushering in the New Year, ready for all the cool things it will bring, and you start it off by dying a completely avoidable death. I guess you can’t live if you don’t take some chances.

Anyways, I wish a prosperous 2010 for all of you! Make sure you all go out and try something new. Live life and don’t choke on your mochi!

  • http://www.myspace.com/net-slum TDoWF

    w00t 1st post!
    it looks good to me
    just need to eat slowly

  • http://twitter.com/CultureQuirk Delphine

    おいしそう〜 I didn't know mochi soup was a tradition! Very interesting. あけましておめでとうございます :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Artem-Sorokin/100000063505107 Artem Sorokin

    Whoo Just purchased Textfugu =) what a great little text book, I can finally start learning Japanese! uuuuurghhhh the reading and writing Hiragana chapter im on (I already started doing the free lessons before purchasing it) is taking some time…. why does my memory have to suck so bad =P I have been doing this for about1.5, 2 hours now, and still cant get like half of the symbols.. well, back to it I guess!

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Cool! THanks!

    Don't worry, that'll probably be the hardest chapter you'll face, and after you can do that, you've already surpassed 90% of everyone else “trying to learn Japanese.” It's a good feeling, and 1.5-2 hours? Damn man, you're moving fast!

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  • http://discojing.com/ Nicole O.

    Thats why I'm sure to take of small bites of mochi when I eat it (that scene in Tampopo with the vacuum cleaner ruined it for me), though I hear it's better to just chomp it twice and then swallow it.

    Then again, I have an odd fear of choking. I almost died eating a futo-maki that decided to unroll itself while i was still chewing half of it. Needless to say, sushi (and general eating) has never been the same since. Unfortunately!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Artem-Sorokin/100000063505107 Artem Sorokin

    Fast? I don't know about that, I feel like I am being very slow.. it will probably take me another week to get them OKish, but that 2 hour start helped quite a bit =D
    And I already said this more then ones (in email and such) But a few honest words, directly from my heart, without you… This would have been much harder. You, sir, are awesome! and I really mean it!! and lastly, no blog post today =(? I thought it was one of your New Years resolutions to post a blog entry each day of January =P

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    I just got home from the pet hospital :( I'm going to try to double post tomorrow though to make up for it :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Artem-Sorokin/100000063505107 Artem Sorokin

    aw, I'm sorry about your pet >_> and I am looking forward to the 2 blog posts =)

  • Kyohei

    Taste of　お雑煮 is different each other families. So my mother dont put いくら(do you know いくら?) into お雑煮 ,my grandma neither.
    These sentences were correct? Im not confident.

    コーイチさんの文章は「～と思うですね」とかありますが、「～と思います」とすると良いですよ。「～と思う」で文が終わってから「ですね」を言うのは不自然(forced)です。
    あと、「滅法」は今の日本人は絶対に言いません＾＾；

  • Dennis

    Have to give the Mochi soup a try sometime!

    Hmm… Now where did that double post go. Guess it will have to be triple post now!

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Hopefully 2am still counts as today!

  • http://tokyokawaiietc.com/ kirin

    Wow, that Ozoni comes with salmon caviar! Gorgeous! I never tried salmon caviar over Ozoni…but looks nice. :p Your video was funny. I've known your site but I didn't really have time to read it. I think this is the first time leaving comment to you. ^ ^ You are doing a great job, keep it up, and happy new year!

    BTW, I saw you recommend “Flutter Scape” at the sidebar. I didn't know this but as I live in Japan, I can join this and sell something there, right?

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    yep, you should be able to sell!

    Thanks for commenting for your first time. Much appreciated!

  • http://katiesjapanfiles.wordpress.com Katie Muffett

    adorable video and love the false start ukelele :) Mochi is scary!! It's like the diamond-compressed form of rice o.O

    and after a rec from Mike 'Gakuranman' I want to try the TextFugu! I'm desperate for some proper structure, and I'm kinda scared of taking classes where I will be summarily trounced by anime and manga lovers.

  • http://www.tofugu.com koichi

    Very cool – just let me know if you have any questions about it.

  • http://gakuranman.com Gakuranman

    I'm forever posting articles at 2am and backdating them by a couple of hours so it looks like I made the day before ;)

  • http://gakuranman.com Gakuranman

    I'm forever posting articles at 2am and backdating them by a couple of hours so it looks like I made the day before ;)

  • Token_bentolunchblog

    This is a very good blog! I just love it! Very interesting information about japan. Thanks for sharing the info about mochi-soup, too! I didn't know, that you can die so easily on new year XD

  • Jin J.

    cool vid, koichi-sensei ^_^
    i have a 2 questions…
    how do you make mochi?
    and
    did people really die, choking on mochi?

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  • KoichibensgirlfriendLOL

    On the Mochi soup. What are those orangy eyeball lookalike things on top of it?

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    It looks good to me, just need to eat slowly!

  • http://hi.baidu.com/yishiym123 TwoBlue

    おいしそう〜 I didn't know mochi soup was a tradition! Very interesting. あけましておめでとうございます :)

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    It looks good to me, just need to eat slowly!

  • http://hi.baidu.com/yishiym123 TwoBlue

    おいしそう〜 I didn't know mochi soup was a tradition! Very interesting. あけましておめでとうございます :)

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  • Anonymous

    Very grateful to the author to write this article.
    It makes a lot of things I learned.

  • Anonymous

    “Mochi soup”  I like it  it’s very delicious!!!

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  • Anonymous

    WOW!!! the picture looks very delicious…. HAHA

  • Nobuo Hasegawa

    mmmmm…oishii yo! ^~^