Sweets
Ibara Mochi
Ibara mochi — sweet rice cake wrapped in smilax leaves
Sweet bean paste wrapped in rice-flour dough is enclosed in a round, smooth smilax leaf and steamed, traditionally made for the May boy's festival. Known as "ibara mochi" in Tsu, the same treat carries different names — "gandachi mochi," "dokkan mochi" — across other parts of Mie.
- Origin: Mie
- About 320 km west of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
Ibara-mochi is a rice cake wrapped around sweet bean paste, made from jyoshinko rice flour and pressed between two leaves of sarutori-ibara, a wild greenbrier, before steaming. The round, smooth leaf keeps the mochi from sticking and reportedly leaves it with a faint green fragrance after steaming. The name changes by place: ibara-mochi in Tsu, osasuri in the Higashi-Kishu area, dokkan-mochi in Kameyama, and ibara-dango in the Iga area.
How it's made
Hot water is worked into jyoshinko flour and sugar until the dough loses its powdery feel, then rolled into rounds about eight centimeters across. Sweet bean paste is wrapped inside, folded shut, and pressed firmly closed before being sandwiched between sarutori-ibara leaves and steamed. In early spring, when the leaves are still small, two are layered together; once they grow larger in autumn, a single leaf is folded around the mochi instead.
Why it took this shape
The round, smooth-surfaced sarutori-ibara leaf suits wrapping mochi well, and is reportedly said to have stood in for oak leaves in western Japan, where oak was scarce for making kashiwa-mochi. The cake is made for the May Boys' Festival and for nobori, the celebration marking the end of farm work such as rice planting, and is thought to have taken hold as a treat shared with the people who helped out, in gratitude for their labor. Because the leaves only grow from spring through autumn, preserved leaves are reportedly used in winter.
Before you go
- How to use a convenience storeA quick guide to choosing rice balls and hot snacks, buying coffee, paying by cash, IC card, or tap payment, using the eat-in corner, and sorting your trash — the basics for a first visit.
- 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.
- Osechi and zoni for the New YearA guide to the meaning behind osechi's tiered boxes, the regional differences in zoni (square vs. round mochi, clear vs. miso broth), and the nanakusa-gayu custom.
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 Mie
- AhodakiOld takuan pickle, once its flavor and aroma have faded, is desalted and simmered again in soy sauce, a pantry staple from the Hokusei area. Its name — playfully self-deprecating, roughly "doing a foolish thing" — nods to eating it well past its prime, a frugal way to waste nothing.
- Arame MakiRehydrated arame, a brown seaweed once offered to Ise Shrine, is wrapped several times around sardine or saury and simmered in soy sauce and sugar. The choice of fish shifts by locality along the Toba coast.
- Bon JiruA miso soup packed with seasonal vegetables such as burdock, eggplant, and pumpkin. Following Zen Buddhist practice of avoiding killing during Obon, it skips bonito or dried-fish stock, relying instead on fried tofu and a generous mix of vegetables for its savor.
- ChagayuRice is cooked in water steeped with a bag of roasted tea leaves. Born in Iga, where farmland was scarce and rice precious, the extra water was a way to stretch the grain further; in summer some households chill the porridge before eating.
- ChatsuJulienned daikon, carrot, lotus root, kelp, and fried tofu are simmered in vinegar and sugar, a dish from Asahi town. Its name is said to come from "chatsu," the red-lacquered vessel once used to serve vegetarian temple food, and soy sauce is deliberately left out to keep the dish pale.
- Fuki DawaraRice cooked with soybeans is wrapped in butterbur leaves into a small rice-bale shape, an Iga-area harvest offering. It is set before the rice-paddy deity at planting time to pray for a good crop, and doubles as a portable snack for breaks between farm work.