Noodles ── Soba
Toshikoshi Soba
Toshikoshi soba — soba eaten on New Year's Eve, a custom tied to the turning year
Soba eaten on the night of New Year's Eve, also called toshitori-soba or omisoka-soba. Accounts of its origin vary — one ties the noodle's long, thin shape to a wish for long life and lasting fortune, another to the way soba snaps easily, said to cut off a year's hardships.
What it's made of
It is soba eaten as a New Year's Eve custom, on the night the calendar turns. The noodle itself is said to be no different from an everyday bowl of kake or mori soba, with nothing special in the ingredients. What sets it apart is simply that the day and the hour it is eaten are fixed to New Year's Eve.
How it's made
There is no set way to prepare it — households and shops are said to serve it however they normally would, as kake or mori soba. In the Kanto region, many households are said to top it with shrimp tempura, though the toppings are otherwise left to local and family custom. Custom holds that the bowl should be finished before the year turns, with a saying that none of it should be left to carry into the new year.
Why it took this shape
Several accounts of its origin are said to circulate. One reads good fortune into the noodle's long, thin shape, a wish for a long life and a lasting household. Another reads the noodle's tendency to snap as a way of cutting off a year's hardships and debts, warding off misfortune. A third ties it to gold-leaf artisans once using soba flour to gather stray gold dust, a wish for good fortune with money. The custom is thought to have already taken hold widely by the mid-Edo period.
Before you go
- How to read a ticket machineShops that use a ticket machine (shokken-ki) often place their most popular items in a similar spot.
- Station food and ekiben (station bento)Where and when to find ekiben (station bento) before it sells out, etiquette for eating on board, how standing soba and udon stalls work, and where to find souvenirs sold inside the station.
- Foods to look for in summerA guide to foods often seen in Japan around summer — eel on the Day of the Ox, hiyashi chuka, somen, shaved ice, edamame with beer, and hamo — with rough pointers for finding them.
Dishes in the same style
- Baniku SobaFrom the Aso area of Kumamoto: hot soba topped with horse meat simmered sweet and salty. It's said to carry the history of a region where horse meat took root as a restorative food for the injured and ill.
- Cha SobaA kawari-soba made by kneading powdered green tea, often matcha, into the buckwheat dough. It takes on a faint green tint along with tea's own aroma. It is said to be one of the playful noodle variations devised during the Bunka-Bunsei era (1804–30), alongside yuzu-flavored soba.