Renkon Mochi

This celebratory dish from Kadoma City packs red-and-white glutinous rice into the holes of a lotus root before steaming it. The steamed lotus root turns notably sticky, and sliced into rounds it reveals a festive red-and-white cross-section, said to double as a sweet when topped with roasted soybean flour or bean paste. Lotus root, prized as a lucky vegetable for its holes that let one 'see through' to the future, is also used in New Year's osechi, and this dish is said to be a signature way of celebrating it.

Peeled lotus root is soaked overnight in rice-rinsing water, and glutinous rice, half of it dyed red with food coloring, is packed into the holes with chopsticks. The cut ends are sealed with foil, and the root is steamed for about two hours, until a bamboo skewer slides through easily. Sliced into rounds and plated, it's said to be enjoyed as a sweet with roasted soybean flour or bean paste, or as a savory dish with mustard-soy sauce or ponzu, its festive red-and-white appearance and sticky texture both part of the appeal.

Kadoma's poorly drained soil made it ill-suited for rice paddies but favorable for lotus root to grow wild, and it's said that during the Edo period lotus root was sometimes paid in place of tax rice. Cultivation methods and varieties were revised in the Taisho era, and production is said to have expanded further after the war. Prized as a lucky vegetable whose holes let one see through to the future, its red-and-white coloring is thought to be why it became fixed as a dish fitting for celebratory occasions locally.