Mochi!

Another Harvest Festival, today at the local primary school. This year for the first time the kids grew their own organic rice from scratch, doing everything from planting to harvesting. A representative from each year group read out a little piece they'd written about it all, and the year four kid, who lives in our street actually, wrote a whole speech complaining about how many weeds there were! Ha ha! Anyway, they made mochi with the rice, turned it into various dishes, and we all ate together. It was the first time I've seen mochi being made, and so the first time I'd eaten it this fresh. It was AMAZING!! I'm such a fan. All the kids had a go with the hammer, but it was mostly three of the adults that did the work. I wonder how many people get injured every year making mochi? It's the woman's job to push the rice back into a ball after it's been smashed with the hammer, looks rather hazardous! The lady today did a very good job!

Here's what we ate - this soup was so fantastically good! The white gooey blob is mochi....


Then anko mochi - mochi smothered in red bean paste....


And natto mochi - mochi rolled in stinky fermented beans with a special sauce....


Finally, our baby the superstar! I never knew how much little kids loved babies, and vice-versa....