Sweets
Mitsume no Botamochi
Mitsume no Botamochi — an oversized rice cake made to mark a firstborn's birth
Three days after a first child is born, an oversized botamochi rice cake is made to help the mother recover and encourage her milk — packed into lacquer boxes and shared with neighbors as a way of announcing the birth, done only for the firstborn.
- Origin: Ibaraki
- About 100 km northeast of Tokyo
Lineage
What it's made of
An oversized botamochi made on the third day after a family's first child is born. Whole glutinous and regular rice, left unmashed and unshaped, is packed flat into a lacquer box and topped with sweet bean paste — its sheer size is the whole point, carrying wishes for the new mother's recovery and a way of announcing the birth to relatives and neighbors.
How it's made
Glutinous and regular rice are cooked together and left to steam, then packed straight into a lacquer box without mashing or shaping, topped with sweet bean paste. It's cut into pieces for serving. Some households skip the box entirely and make three oversized botamochi instead — either way, making it unmistakably large is what matters most.
Why it took this shape
In an era when food was hard to come by, this outsized botamochi, rich in glutinous rice and azuki beans, is said to have been made to help a mother recover her strength and her milk supply after childbirth. Delivered in lacquer boxes to relatives and neighbors, it doubled as a way of announcing the birth — a custom observed only for a family's first child.
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
Related lineage
- Tagane MochiGlutinous and non-glutinous rice are steamed and pounded together into a flat, sea-cucumber-shaped cake, its mix-ins — green nori, soybeans, shiso seeds — varying by town around Lake Kasumigaura. Grilled or fried, it is a New Year's favorite.
- Juubako-iri BotamochiSweet rice and red-bean paste are layered whole into a lacquered box rather than shaped into individual mounds, so each person takes as much as they like — made to mark a baby's third day, a custom said to carry the hope of nourishing a mother soon after birth.
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.