Sweets
Bandai Mochi
Bandai Mochi — firm rice pounded on a board, from Nikko's Kuriyama district
In the Kuriyama district of Nikko, firm-cooked non-glutinous rice is pounded on a wooden board — hence 'itadai-mochi,' board-mochi — and eaten with miso glaze, sweet bean paste, or a perilla-seed sauce depending on the hamlet.
- Origin: Tochigi Nikko
- About 120 km north of Tokyo
What it's made of
Made not from glutinous rice but from firmly cooked ordinary rice, pounded on a wooden board with the back of an axe in a mountain work hut. Less sticky and smoother than mochi made from glutinous rice, it doesn't harden as quickly, and is toasted over an irori hearth and topped with sweet bean paste, a perilla-miso sauce, or mashed edamame — a plain dish rooted in mountain village life.
How it's made
Ordinary rice, soaked in water, is cooked firm and left to steam, then pounded with a rice-pounding machine while pressed down with a rice paddle to bring out its stickiness, and shaped into small ovals. It's toasted over the irori or dropped into broth like a New Year's zoni. Perilla seeds are roasted slowly and ground in a mortar with hot water, sugar, and salt for a sauce called juune, or boiled edamame is mashed into zunda, either used as a topping depending on the region.
Why it took this shape
The mochi is said to take its name — "board-stand mochi" — from being pounded with the back of an axe on a wooden board in mountain work huts, where proper tools weren't always at hand. Eaten at festivals honoring the mountain gods, or carried home as a gift when leaving the hut, it's said to have taken root as festival food rooted in the life of these snowy mountain communities.
Before You Go
- How to shop in a depachika (department store food hall)A guide to browsing prepared foods and bento, choosing wagashi as a gift with a good shelf life, sampling etiquette, end-of-day discounts, asking for cold packs and wrapping, and finding your way around a depachika floor.
- At Kissaten, Cafes, and Kanmi-DokoroThe difference between jun-kissa and chain cafes, the morning-set custom, and kanmi-dokoro staples like anmitsu and zenzai.
Dishes in the same style
- Abekawa MochiFresh-pounded rice cake is dusted in soybean flour mixed with sugar. Named for the Abe River, it's said to have been famous among Tokaido travelers as a teahouse specialty and to appear in the travel novel Tokaidochu Hizakurige.
- Iga ManjuSweet bean paste is wrapped in rice flour dough, then coated with dyed sticky rice grains. One account ties the name to the grains' resemblance to a chestnut's spiny husk, and in the western Mikawa region it's said to be offered to Hina dolls at the Doll Festival.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Tochigi
- Agemaki Yuba no NimonoFresh yuba sheets are layered, rolled into a log, sliced into rounds, and deep-fried before a slow simmer in a light broth — a Nikko dish built on the region's rippled yuba-making craft, served at New Year's and celebrations.
- Aiso no KanroniDace that gather to spawn each spring in the Naka and Kinu rivers, known locally as aiso, are slow-simmered in a sweet glaze until soft to the bone — food from a landlocked prefecture where river fish once meant protein.
- Ayu MeshiAlong the Naka River and other ayu-fishing streams, unseasoned grilled ayu is cooked into the rice — made for festivals and farm rest days, with any leftover fish skewered and hung by the hearth to keep.
- Battou JiruWheat dough is torn by hand into a miso soup simmered with seasonal vegetables — known by different names, hattou-jiru or dango-jiru, across the region, and long relied on when rice ran short.
- Chitake to Nasu no Abura ItameChitake mushrooms, which weep a milky sap when torn, are stir-fried with eggplant — a summer-only find tied to managed satoyama woodland, and also prized as a broth base for udon and soba.
- Chitake UdonEaten around Obon in Tochigi, this pours a dashi of stir-fried chitake mushroom and eggplant over udon. It's said to have arisen where udon kneaded for Obon met a mushroom that appears only in summer.