Rice Pounding, aka Making Mochi

February 4, 1977, was the date of Elder Galbraith's helicopter crash in Hawaii.  But now, after experiencing a new-to-us but centuries-old Japanese custom of rice pounding, we have a much happier event to remember for February 4.  On that day this year we were scheduled to attend a 2 p.m. District meeting with ten elders in the chapel at Kunitachi.  Luckily, we had also been told that the Kunitachi ward was holding their annual winter activity of Rice Pounding from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.; thus, we were able to kill two birds with one car and drive down to attend both events.  We were a little hesitant about "crashing" a Japanese ward's function--especially fearful of the language barrier--but our desire to learn more about Japanese culture combined with the knowledge that the elders could translate for us 

overcame any hesitation we may have had.

The very first thing to catch our attention was the number of local members who spoke English--and very good English at that!  Many of them had either attended BYU Hawaii or BYU Provo.  It was truly exciting to be able to visit freely with so many of them without the need for a translator.  Still, we did bow, smile, and say "Konnichiwa" to quite a number of others who did not speak English.  The activity was held mostly in the parking lot; however, the Relief Society ladies were equally busy inside preparing the various finished products once the glutinous glob of rice was handed to them through the window.  The beginning of the morning was quite chilly, but we were blessed to have a clear sky, and the day warmed up

to be warmer than the usual Japanese February day.

Mochi, or rice balls, is a traditional Japanese food served primarily at New Years and other special celebrations.  It is made with a special Mochi rice kernel as opposed to regular rice.  I am going to try to describe the process of Rice Pounding with pictures as I go along.  I hope it works out all right as what I see in the draft form is not always what you get in the published form!



Here is the wooden pounding bowl
 & heavy wooden mallets

A wooden container of rice is place over boiling water

Pounding bowl is wiped out & made ready

                                            

                                               Cooked rice is lifted from wooden cooker
                                             and carried over to the pounding bowl

            

The next step is to tamp it down

Two people tamp the rice as they circle the bowl

Water is added alternately with every
pound of the mallet

Elder Fry shows off his strength!  Yay!

I am given a child's mallet!  Boo!

Elder G uses the big boy's mallet.  Hooray!

After 10 minutes of pounding, the rice
resembles glutinous bread dough

Some people liken it to Play Doh

Ladies in the kitchen place the large blob
into water and pull off chunks to form balls

Some balls were tossed in a sweet soy powder.  Not bad!

Others were wrapped around a strawberry encased in
bean paste and rolled in flour.  Actually, quite tasty!

Itadakimasu!

Yummy!

Befuddled by it all!