Mochi

• 1. Introduction

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  Mochi, the Japanese rice cake, once turned into a white bird and flew away. That is the legend recorded in the Bungo no kuni fudoki, a book compiled in the late 8th century, during the Nara period. A rich man took leftover rice and made a flat mochi from it. Then he shot an arrow at it. The mochi became a white bird. After it vanished, his rice field turned desolate and barren.

  It is a strange fate for a lump of pounded rice. Yet mochi has spent well over a thousand years being treated as more than food. It sits on altars, marks births and weddings, and fills the tables of the Japanese New Year.

  Why would steamed rice, beaten into a smooth paste, carry that much meaning? What makes the paste stretch instead of crumbling? How did a plain, unsweetened cake become the base for strawberries, ice cream and donuts? And why do officials in Japan still issue a warning about it every year?

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• 2. Sacred Rice

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  Red rice was the original grain used to make mochi, not the white rice most people picture today. Homemade production began to rise in the 6th century, during the Kofun period. Archaeological research links that rise to earthenware steamers, which became popular in every household, mainly in eastern Japan.

  By the Heian period, which ran from 794 to 1185, mochi had moved into Shinto events marking childbirth and marriage. The Ōkagami, compiled in the 12th century, records that emperors and nobles put mochi into the mouths of babies who were 50 days old. In aristocratic society, the bride and groom also ate mochi together at the bride's house, three days after the wedding.

  The earliest recorded New Year festivities involving mochi come from the same era. Nobles of the Imperial court believed that long strands of freshly made mochi symbolized long life and well-being. They believed dried mochi helped strengthen the teeth. Accounts of these customs also appear in The Tale of Genji.

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• 3. Samurai and Sugar

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  Two stacked spheres of mochi, crowned with a bitter orange called a daidai, form the kagami mochi, or mirror mochi. The custom began among the samurai class during the Muromachi period. At the New Year, samurai dressed their kagami mochi with Japanese armor and swords. They placed it in the tokonoma, the alcove of a traditional room where art or flowers are displayed, and prayed for their families' prosperity.

  Eating it afterward required care. People avoided cutting it with a hōchō, a knife, so as not to violate the kami. Instead they waited until the mochi dried and cracked on its own, then smashed it with a wooden hammer. Today the offering goes onto family altars, called kamidana, on the 28th of December, and the ritual of breaking and eating it is called kagami biraki.

  Until this point, most mochi had no sweetener at all. That began to change in the 17th century, when the Portuguese introduced Western confections. Over the next two centuries Japan's social elite adopted sweet confections and treated a high sugar content as a status symbol.

  Demand pushed domestic sugar production upward from the mid-18th century. A century later, sweetened mochi had become accessible enough to win over the general public. Those who could afford it had mochi made with white sugar, while everyone else used brown.

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• 4. Pounding Rhythm

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  The heavy wooden mallets called kine can injure the very people swinging them. That risk shapes the traditional pounding of mochi, known as mochitsuki. It is an important cultural event involving a local community or a family. It has become less common, but it survives in most rural areas, in urban temples, in shrines and in community spaces, especially in the days before the new year.

  The method uses whole rice as the only ingredient. Polished glutinous rice is soaked overnight and then steamed. The steamed rice goes into a traditional mortar, called an usu, where two people work together. One pounds with a kine while the other turns and wets the mass. They must keep a steady rhythm. Finally the sticky mass is cut or formed into shapes, such as spheres.

  Modern kitchens skip the mortar. A sweet rice flour called mochiko is mixed with water and cooked on a stovetop or in a microwave until it becomes a sticky, opaque, white mass. The cooking is done twice, with stirring in between, until the dough turns malleable and slightly transparent. Household mochi appliances can also automate the laborious pounding and control the dough's environment.

  Factory production demands more. An assembly line controls chewiness by selecting specific rice species, and it also controls dough consistency, size, flavourings and fillings. In one study, the rice varieties kantomochi 172 and BC3 differed in how their amylopectin was distributed. Kantomochi produced harder, brittle, grainy textures, which were undesirable except that they made the mochi easy to cut. For mass production, the rice should be chewy yet easy to separate.

  Two kinds of machine are typical. One prepares the dough, and the other shapes it, with or without filling. A study of the dough machine found that 62 degrees Celsius corresponds to the gelatinization of mochi. Below that temperature the hardening was too slow, so a lower processing temperature was judged unsuitable. These machines are a hugely expensive investment.

  The flour itself comes in two forms. Shiratamako is more refined, with a finer, smoother and more elastic feel. Mochiko is less refined and has a doughier texture. Both are made from mochigome, a glutinous short-grain rice. Salt and flavourings matter for taste, but adding them before the cake is formed can break the mass.

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• 5. Chemistry of Chew

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  A drop of iodine reveals what makes mochi rice different. Glutinous rice stains red, while ordinary rice stains blue. The color difference comes from two starch components, amylose and amylopectin. Iodine stains amylose blue and amylopectin red.

  Both are built from D-glucose units. Amylose is a straight chain. Amylopectin is branched, with an occasional branch point roughly every 22 glucose units. Ordinary rice grains hold about 10-30 percent amylose and about 70-90 percent amylopectin. Glutinous rice is nearly 100 percent amylopectin and almost completely lacks amylose. In a comparison of starch sources, waxy maize scores 0 percent amylose and 100 percent amylopectin, while long-grain rice scores 22 and 78.

  The high amylopectin level is genetically controlled by a gene called the waxy gene. Grains carrying it are considered mutants, and most have been selectively bred toward close to zero percent amylose. In water, amylopectin is more hygroscopic than amylose, so water enters the starch granule and makes it swell. Meanwhile the amylose leaves the granule and joins a colloidal solution. Heat strongly boosts the water uptake.

  The resulting chew is a balance of viscosity and elasticity. Puncture tests show that more solid content gives a tougher, more rigid gel. Longer heating gives a similar result. Sensory tests agree on hardness and elasticity, but stickiness rises only up to a certain level and then reverses. Too hard, too elastic or too sticky is undesirable, and a sticky mochi clings to its container. The ideal is extensible yet firm.

  The same stickiness carries a danger. Suffocation deaths from mochi occur every year in Japan, especially among elderly people. In 2015, the Tokyo Fire Department, which responds to choking cases, reported more than 100 people hospitalized per year in Tokyo alone. Between 2006 and 2009, Tokyo recorded 18 deaths from choking on mochi. Japanese authorities put out yearly warnings advising people to cut mochi into small pieces.

  Keeping mochi is a separate problem. It can be refrigerated briefly, but it may become hard and unusable. Freezing is the recommended method, with each cake wrapped tightly in a sealed plastic bag. It can stay in the freezer for almost a year, though it may lose flavor and softness or get freezer-burned. Additives such as modified tapioca starch can also extend shelf life.

  Nutritionally, mochi is gluten-free and cholesterol-free. A 44.0 gram serving has 96 calories, 1.0 gram of fat, 22.0 grams of carbohydrates, 6.0 grams of sugar and 1.0 gram of protein.

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• 6. Calendar of Cakes

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  Red and white kamaboko floats in a bowl of zōni, the soup that holds rice cakes and is eaten on New Year's Day. Besides mochi, the broth contains vegetables such as taro, carrot and honeywort. The same day brings kinako mochi, an emblem of luck. The mochi is roasted over a fire or stove, dipped in water, and then coated with sugar and kinako, which is soy flour.

  Spring belongs to the cherry blossom, called sakura, which signals the onset of full spring. Sakuramochi is pink mochi wrapped around sweet red bean paste, then covered in an edible, salted cherry blossom leaf.

  On the 3rd of March, Japan celebrates Hinamatsuri, or Girls' Day. In the days before it, families offer hishi mochi, a rhomboid cake in layers of red, green and white. Jasmine flowers, water caltrop and mugwort supply the three colors.

  Children's Day falls on the 5th of May and promotes the happiness and well-being of children. Kashiwa-mochi is white mochi around sweet red bean paste, wrapped in a kashiwa oak leaf. Chimaki is a dango variation wrapped in bamboo leaves.

  Summer and the Star Festival, called tanabata, bring other cakes. Sakumochi is deep-fried rice cake twisted into a rope shape. Its origin is unclear, because records mention a dish called sakubei, made from wheat flour and rice flour. Some scholars think sakubei was a confection, while others think it was an early form of the wheat noodle sōmen.

  In winter, Japanese people often warm themselves with oshiruko, also called ozenzai, a sweet azuki bean soup with pieces of mochi.

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• 7. Modern Sweets

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  Inside a daifuku sits sweetened red bean paste, called anko, or white bean paste, called shiro an. The daifuku is a soft round mochi stuffed with that filling. Ichigo daifuku hides a whole strawberry inside. Kusa mochi is a green mochi flavored with mugwort, called yomogi. A daifuku made from it is called yomogi daifuku.

  The conglomerate Lotte makes a frozen version in Japan. Small balls of ice cream are wrapped in a mochi covering and sold under the name Yukimi Daifuku, meaning snow-viewing daifuku. Chikara udon, whose name means power udon, puts toasted mochi on udon noodles in soup.

  Some mochi relatives are not true mochi. Dango is a dumpling made from mochiko. Warabimochi is a jelly-like summer confection made from bracken starch, dipped in kinako with sugar. Kuzumochi is a similar sweet made from kudzu starch. Manjū is also not true mochi but a confection of flour, rice powder, buckwheat and red bean paste.

  Around the year 2000, moffles arrived: waffles made from toasted mochi. They can be cooked in a specialized machine or in a traditional waffle iron.

  Mister Donut popularized the mochi donut in Japan before it reached the United States by way of Hawaii. It is described as a cross between a cake-like doughnut and the chewy dough wrapped around ice cream. The Mister Donut style, called pon de ring, uses tapioca flour and pulls apart easily. A version developed in the United States uses glutinous rice flour, which gives a denser donut like Hawaiian-style butter mochi. Those made with glutinous rice flour typically contain half the calories of a standard cake or yeast doughnut.

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• 8. Cousins Abroad

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  In Taiwan, a pounded rice cake called teuchi or tauchi was traditionally made by the Hakka and Hoklo peoples, in as many forms as in Japan. Traditional Hakka mochi is glutinous rice dough covered with peanuts or sesame powder. A softer version, often filled with bean paste and similar to daifuku, is called moachi in Taiwanese Hokkien and mashu in Taiwanese Mandarin.

  In China, tangyuan are balls of glutinous rice flour mixed with a little water. They are cooked and served in boiling water, typically with black sesame or peanut paste inside. In Hong Kong and other Cantonese regions, lo mai chi is a ball of glutinous rice flour with fillings such as crushed peanuts, coconut, red bean paste and black sesame paste. Modern flavors include green tea, mango, taro and strawberry.

  The Philippines has tikoy, a sweet snack similar to mochi, and espasol, which tastes like kinako mochi but uses roasted rice flour. Moche, mache and masi are small steamed rice balls with bean paste or peanut fillings. Despite the similar names, they are not derived from Japanese mochi. They descend from the Chinese jian dui, called buchi in the Philippines, and use the native galapong process, which mixes ground, slightly fermented glutinous rice with coconut milk.

  In Korea, chapssal-tteok is made from steamed glutinous rice or steamed glutinous rice flour. Indonesia has kue moci, filled with sweet bean paste and covered in sesame seeds, which comes from Sukabumi in West Java and Semarang in Central Java. Yogyakarta has yangko, and in Pontianak mochi covered with ground peanut powder is called kaloci.

  Malaysia has kuih kochi, filled with coconut and palm sugar. A Chinese Malaysian variant, loh mai chi, uses crushed peanut fillings, and kuih tepung gomak is a larger cake popular on the east coast. Singapore has muah chee, coated in crushed peanuts or black sesame seeds.

  The journey ends in Hawaii, where butter mochi is baked from mochiko, butter, sugar, coconut and other ingredients into a kind of sponge cake.

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