Holiday Food Part 5 - Japanese New Year Meal
January 1, 2010

Happy New Year! I hope this year will bring you a lot of happiness and great food experiences.

New Year's Day is probably the most important holiday in Japan. We start the first day of the year with a traditional new year meal called "osechi". In the modern days, we start calling only the meal during the new year "osechi" but originally it meant the meal to offer God on the holidays. Traditionally, we fill up with a parade of food in a four-level square lacquered box. Each food inside has a special meaning. For example, black beans are a wish for healthy living; herring eggs are for prosperity and so on.

These days, as you can imagine, the younger generation doesn't appreciate these kinds of food and lots of people including myself incorporate more modern foods into the holiday meal. I make only a few things that my husband and I can manage to eat just the two of us. We always start with soba buckwheat noodles (which we are supposed to eat on new year's eve) and tempra. Sticky rice cakes in a bonito broth is a must. And this year, I made Chinese bbq pork (my family's tradition), miso marinated cod, some vegetable dishes, and fish cake.

Although many things were missing for the perfect traditional Japanese new year celebration, we still had enough for me to feel flashbacks to my country for just a little while.

From top left : buckwheat noodles, shrimp and asparagus tempura, miso marinated cod fish, homemade char siu (chinese braised pork), mochi (sticky rice cake), fish cake