Sweets
Meno Mochi Arare
Meno mochi arare — small-New-Year rice offerings later fried into crackers
Small rice-cake offerings — dyed red-and-white, yellow, and green — are skewered onto an elm branch for Little New Year in a display called meno mochi; around January 30th they come down and are fried into crackers. The name is said to trace to a wish for a bountiful silkworm harvest, carrying hopes for good crops and warding off misfortune.
- Origin: Miyazaki Kobayashi
- About 910 km southwest of Tokyo
What it's made of
Meno mochi arare is a sweet made by displaying "meno mochi," small New Year's decorative rice cakes, until around January 30th, then deep-frying them into a crunchy snack. Red, white, yellow, and green mochi were skewered onto a hackberry branch cut before the birds woke, then set out as a decoration. Once taken down, they're fried and seasoned to taste with soy sauce or kinako.
How it's made
Once the decoration has served its purpose, the mochi pieces are removed from the hackberry branch and deep-fried into a crunchy snack. As they fry, they puff up slightly, and the popping sound and small round shape are said to resemble hailstones, or "arare," falling from the sky. They're finished with a seasoning of choice, such as soy sauce or kinako soybean flour.
Why it took this shape
The meno mochi decoration is a Koshogatsu, or Little New Year, tradition in the southern Kyushu region, made to pray for a good harvest and a safe household, and its name is said to derive from a word for silkworm cocoons. It's said to have originated as a shape made to wish for a bountiful cocoon harvest, and it's also said to carry meanings of warding off misfortune, wishing for a good crop, and welcoming spring. Turning the mochi into a fried snack once its role as decoration was done is said to be a resourceful way of making sure nothing went to waste.
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.
- 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.
- Setsubun: ehomaki and lucky beansA guide to ehomaki, the uncut sushi roll said to be eaten facing a lucky direction on Setsubun, and to mamemaki, the bean-throwing custom with roasted lucky beans.
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 Miyazaki
- Chikin NanbanFried chicken dipped in sweet vinegar and topped with tartar sauce, said to have originated in Nobeoka, Miyazaki. It's said to trace to a sweet-vinegar fried chicken devised as staff food at a Western-food restaurant in the 1950s.
- Futatabi DangoDumpling flour is kneaded, steamed with freshly picked mugwort folded in, then pounded a second time — a Nobeoka treat named for that unusual second working of the dough, wrapped around sweet bean paste and dusted with soybean flour into a soft, pale-green dumpling.
- Hie-zushiWild boar bones are simmered into a broth, then rice, millet, and vegetables are added and cooked down into a porridge — a Shiiba village dish built on millet, a grain said to have been eaten in Japan since before rice farming; whenever a boar was dressed, the porridge it made was shared around the whole village to see out the long winter.
- Hyuga Kurokawa Kabocha no NimonoHyuga kurokawa kabocha, a black-skinned heirloom pumpkin first grown in Miyazaki City, is cut into large chunks and simmered slowly in sugar and light soy sauce — lighter and less sweet than a Western pumpkin, but it holds its shape well and its skin is good to eat too.
- Jidori no Miso KorobakashiJidori chicken is rolled around a dry pan with no added water, coaxed with a miso glaze without letting it catch — a home-cooked dish from around Kobayashi City, its name a western-Miyazaki dialect word for tumbling food in a pot as it cooks, the mix of vegetables and seasoning varying from house to house.