Untangling My Chopsticks (20 page)

At first glance, the arrangement looked like a stack of white Frisbees topped with one of Yasu's neckties and some fruit that hadn't yet made it into the kitchen. Later that day, however, Tomiko set the record straight. “These are pounded rice cakes,” she said, pointing to the Frisbees. “They are called the
kagami mochi,
or ‘mirror rice cake.’ ” A sacred mirror, in addition to a sword and jewels, make up the three Imperial Regalia of Japan. In Shinto mythology, the sun goddess Amaterasu is the progenitor of the imperial line. When she hid in a cave after a confrontation with her brother, myriad deities lured her out of the cave with a mirror, in which she spied her own reflection.

Tomiko lifted up the limp green necktie. “This is konbu,” she said. “It's the same kind of seaweed we use to make dashi.” Since the Japanese greatly enjoy wordplay, konbu graces the mochi cakes because it sounds somewhat like
yorokobu,
meaning “joy.”

“And this is
urajiro,
”explained Tomiko, pointing to the two ferns that stuck out from either side of the pounded rice cakes like eagle wings. They were held in place with a skewer of dried persimmons, a fruit that represents health and success in life.

“And here we have a
daidai.
”Tomiko pointed to an orange sitting atop the entire stack like a button on a beanie. This citrus symbolizes longevity because the Chinese word for daidai sounds
similar to the word for “generation [to] generation” and in feudal times samurai families hoped to serve their lord from generation to generation.

To personalize the honorable offering, Tomiko had arranged several of Yasu's carpentry tools on the white cloth. A small bonsai arrangement sat nearby, complete with lumpy moss (suggestive of mountains) surrounded by snow-white pebbles. A tiny pine tree stood in the moss to symbolize long life because of the tree's hardiness, along with a baby bamboo plant denoting constancy and virtue. A pink-flowering plum had also been added to the arrangement to convey wishes for expanding good fortune throughout the year because of its many branches. With all the decorations in place, the time had come to clean.

The restorative home treatments began on December 30, when Tomiko's widowed mother arrived from Osaka to celebrate Oshogatsu. No sooner had the slim petite woman stepped off the fast-train than she was yanking on rubber gloves to beautify the house.

At first, I thought we would simply vacuum, dust, and tidy up the downstairs. “Where shall I start?” I asked, turning to Tomiko. She said something in Japanese to her mother, who pointed to the kitchen. Before I knew it I was holding a bucket of soapy water and a white terry rag.

“Start with the floors,” said Tomiko. “Then do the walls. After that, come see me.” I nodded, suddenly realizing I was about to receive a crash course on the Shinto concept of purification.

I had never washed a wall before. I can't say I really ever thought of them getting dirty. But in minutes the rag had turned
gray. Tomiko's vacuum hummed in the other room, while sounds of flushing emanated from the bathroom as her mother freshened the toilet bowl.

As I gave the walls a dermabrasion, Toro, the cat, stretched from his warm spot on the leather couch then curled up in a ball. “Do you need another rag?” asked Tomiko, stopping in to check on my progress.

I said I'd love another one, so she hurried off and came back with a fresh stack. Renewed, I began washing the windows. Then the metal blinds. The sills. Toro looked up and yawned. I attacked the top of the television, crawled along the floor to wipe the molding, stood on tippytoe to wipe dust off the top of the china cabinet. I scoured the counters. Scrubbed the floors. Polished the stove. And buffed the coffee cart until it twinkled. Panting, I looked over at Toro, who lay fast asleep.

Since Tomiko and her mother showed no sign of slowing, I helped Tomiko beat the rugs, dust the ceilings, wet-mop the hall and stairs, and brighten doorknobs. We swept the vestibule and then washed and rinsed it. Even the washing machine was going full bore. It was a true group effort and by late afternoon the house sparkled. It had been swabbed, sterilized, and bleached into purity. It was a home worthy of being entered by the sun goddess herself to check for any dust with a sacred white glove.

After packing away all the cleaning equipment, we tossed the rags in the laundry for yet another load. Then we collapsed in the family room to convalesce over a cup of tea. We needed it. In a matter of hours, we would be making mochi with the neighboring Omura family.

With cooking off limits during Oshogatsu, mochi became a popular substitute for boiled rice. Shortly before New Year's, families would pound steamed glutinous rice in a stone mortar with a wooden mallet to create a smooth dough to form into cookie-like puffs to eat over the three-day period of rest.

The Japanese believe that pounding rice brings out its sacred power, and that mochi contains the grain's spiritual essence. For the deceased, mochi cakes are placed on altars to serve as sustenance for their journey up to heaven. Over Oshogatsu, families adorn altars at temples and shrines with mochi as offerings to Buddha or the Shinto gods, including the New Year's deity, Toshigami-sama. In the olden days, farmers used to drop mochi down their wells as an offering to the Shinto god of water. Ten days later, they would scatter more mochi in their yards. If the crows pecked it up, legend had it the year would bring a good harvest.

The idea of making mochi with the Omura family had materialized shortly before Christmas. Mr. Omura, like Yasu, was a carpenter. Because they frequently worked on jobs together, they had developed a close friendship. Often, at the end of the day, I would see Mr. Omura arranging lumber in the back of his truck in Tomiko and Yasu's driveway before he headed home to his family. Usually, he and I would just wave at each other as I dipsydoodled my bicycle around the back of the house to lock it for the night. But two weeks into December, Mr. Omura and I had chatted and the conversation had turned to pounded rice cakes. When I said I had never tasted anything but commercially made mochi, Mr. Omura insisted that he educate my palate.

“
Konbanwa
(good evening), herro,” said Mr. Omura, sliding open the wood- and glass-paneled door to his home. His bushy black mustache curved over a crooked-tooth smile as he ushered us in. “Please, I take your coats,” he said, helping Tomiko off with her padded denim jacket. I had just unzipped my fleece when several shrill screams blasted out of the kitchen, followed by two laughing boys, no more than six, chewing on what looked like kitchen twine. Skirting Mr. Omura's extended family, they raced around the vestibule screeching and pushing each other's backs. Several mothers tried to calm the youngsters, while the rest of the clan looked on with amusement, including the toothless grand-mother—Mr. Omura's mother—who appeared somewhat weary sitting in a plump heap on a tatami-lined raised platform in the back half of the room.

Unlike the tiny shoe-filled vestibules in most traditional homes, the one at the Omuras' could have garaged two cars. Dark wood cupboards ran along the bottom part of the cement-paved room. The top portion consisted of putty-colored walls holding high wooden shelves laden with coils of rope, plastic bags, cardboard boxes, saws, and other tools.

Mr. Omura, clutching two small wooden boxes, came over to where Tomiko and I stood. “Some sake?” he asked, extending his offerings. As I took the box, I noticed his hands were red and callused. Pounding mochi would be a cinch for him, I thought, compared to what he did all day. Aside from constructing modern buildings, he and Yasu built traditional Japanese homes, as well as teahouses. But since cement, glass, and aluminum were winning favor over timber, mud, and straw, Yasu and Mr. Omura had become a dying breed of craftsmen.

When everyone had been served the cool clear rice wine, we
all raised our wooden cups to bestow a benediction on the coming New Year. The sake tasted light, sweet, and slightly woody.

These square cups are called
masu
and were originally used to measure dry goods, such as rice. Each cup holds the equivalent of one meal's worth of rice and families would go to their local rice shop to measure out the number of cups they needed. One thousand masu of rice are called a
koku,
which is how the samurai were paid. (One koku, roughly five bushels, represents approximately a year's worth of rice for one person based on three rice-based meals per day.)

Originally masu were made of cedar. Around the turn of the century, when sake was fermented in cedar tanks, they became a popular vessel for holding sake. Nowadays, sake producers use stainless steel or ceramic-lined tanks, so connoisseurs prefer lacquered boxes or cups of pine, like the ones we were using, to preserve the spirit's natural flavor.

To accompany the sake, I tried a piece of the kitchen twine, which turned out to be dried squid. Wonderfully salty and leathery, it was like jerky of the sea. Yasu tapped out a cigarette, and handed it to Mr. Omura. Soon the room filled with smoke, laughter, children's yelps, and Japanese chatter.

“The rice is ready!” squealed the boys, scampering into the room ahead of their uncle. An older man trotted in, red-faced and gasping under the weight of an enormous square wooden box filled with steaming rice. The grandmother pushed herself up from the tatami and shuffled toward the rest of the family rapidly gathering around a waist-high stone bowl in the center of the room. This was the mochi-making bowl, rough gray granite on the outside and smooth within. It sat in a wooden stand consisting of four angled posts, connected at the bottom, so as to form a cradled support.

With a fast flip and a loud “Oof !” Mr. Omura's brother reversed the wooden box to release a glistening square of rice. It fell into the bowl with a wet smack and Mr. Omura quickly peeled off the woven bamboo mat clinging to its surface. The brother trotted back to the kitchen with the empty box and mat, while Mr. Omura fetched the large wooden mallet. Worn smooth like a favorite salad bowl, it would whack the sacred power out of the rice.

Mr. Omura handed the mallet to his brother, who was dressed to pound in tan sweat pants with a white-and-navy-striped kerchief tied around his head. He grabbed the mallet and began to punish the shiny white mass. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Mr. Omura plunged his hands into the bowl, turned over the rice, then yanked out his hands just in time. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Steam rose from the bowl. Plunge, flip. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! The two men grunted and snorted as they flipped and thwacked.

“Who's next?” hollered the brother, readjusting his damp kerchief and stepping back from the bowl. Several nieces and nephews giggled and shoved one another forward. Yasu ground out his cigarette and came over to help a little girl in a pink sweater and blue pleated skirt. She could hardly lift the mallet, but when she did it dropped into the bowl with a dull thump. Yasu picked off the grains of rice clinging to the rounded end of the mallet, then helped several other children take their turn.

Prodded by Tomiko and Mr. Omura, I finally stepped up to the bowl to take a whack. I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater and picked up the mallet. It was bottom heavy and twisted in my hands. I tightened my grip and gave the rice a thwack. It felt like frozen pizza dough. Mr. Omura flipped the starchy ball over and I pummeled it again.

“Oh, the American is so strong, look at her pound!” some
one yelled. Yasu whistled and others hooted. A soft burn rippled across my shoulders. I clenched my teeth and continued to bang. Flip. Bang! Flip. Bang! More cheers. Hot stabs of pain pulsed throughout my deltoids. Flip. Bang! Flip. Bang!

Just when I thought my sweater might ignite, the rice began to relax. “I think it's done,” said Mr. Omura, giving the dough a sharp poke. He scooped up the warm white blob and carried it over to his mother, now back on the tatami raised platform. She scattered fine rice flour over a plastic board and then kneaded the warm white ball like bread dough. A tan flowered apron saved her gray jersey dress from becoming powdery white. Tomiko and several other women climbed up onto the tatami and offered to help. The old woman slowly karate chopped the ball in quarters and gave away the pieces. I got one, as well as Tomiko, and we followed the grandmother's lead as she tore off small blobs and rolled them into rounds the size of Oreos.

While we formed mochi cakes, the men pounded another batch of rice. When it was soft, they divided the rice dough into four pieces. They kept one in the bowl and added cooked bulgur, pummeling the dough until it turned nubby like tweed. They sprinkled the second blob with dried shrimp and banged it until it turned coral. Nori seaweed powder colored the third hunk forest green, while the fourth piece of mochi became yellow and pebbly with cooked corn kernels.

For variation, the grandmother rolled several plain mochi in a tan talc of sweetened toasted soybean powder. She also stuffed several dumplings with crimson azuki bean fudge. Then she smeared a thick gob of azuki paste across a mochi puff, pushed in a candied chestnut, and pinched the dumpling shut.

“For the American!” cried Mr. Omura, swiping his mother's creation. I looked up and he handed it to me. It was tender and
warm. All eyes turned to watch the American. “Oishii!” I uttered with a full mouth. And it was delicious. The soft stretchy rice dough had a mild savory chew that mingled with the candy-like sweetness of the bean paste and buttery chestnut. The camaraderie and spirit in that room was boundless, as others joined in for a taste. Yet, the moment was bittersweet.

Sadly, making mochi is a dying tradition. In the old days, families across Japan used to gather together to pound the rice and form it into dumplings. It was an annual ritual that reinforced people's place in the group, strengthened family bonds, and celebrated the sacred meaning of Oshogatsu. Now professional rice pounders go door to door with rice steaming boxes, mortars, and pestles to produce the rice cakes for busy families. Some don't even do that anymore, instead relying on confectionery shops to make and deliver the fresh rice taffy. Still others buy manufactured dried mochi so stiff and plastic it clicks together like dominos. When hydrated in boiling water, the dried mochi turns gooey and tasteless, like a day-old wad of chewing gum.