Just kidding!
Thoday' topic is kusa mochi(space optional), aka 草餅, which people also call yomogi mochi, aka 蓬餅. You may notice that the second kanji for both words is mochi. The first kanji of kusa mochi though, means grass, and the first kanji of the second word is mugwort. You can basically see where this is all going/has already ended up, right? Mochi flavored (and colored green) with mugwort (though it doesn't strictly have to be mugwort -- more on that in a bit). Sounds tasty, dunnit?
Yeah, to me it still sounds like a health food -- but since I've got exactly zero experience with mugwort as a flavor, even though it sounds kinda meh, it might be good for all I know. So don't let my confidence and authoritative position as a producer of fine and timeless information products influence you in the least -- and if you've tried it, don't hesitate to say. (Yeah, I am getting this social media guru thing down, for sho'!)
First, a brief aside about mochi, which I suppose I ought to have put earlier on in this post but didn't. (Those with intermediate mochi knowledge will understandably and undoubtedly skip the next paragraph. And the one right below it).
In Japan, they've got their own style of rice, and a variety of that has more starch. This second type is steamed and pounded -- traditionally with giant wood mallets and a giant wood pestle, but they also (blessedly) have machines for it these days. (Still, I suppose the hammerer and mochi flipper team can be a bit more of a draw at fairs and public events and suchlike.)
Mochi can be and is often colored and/or flavored and/or wrapped around something -- and/or mixed with tons of preserving chemicals before left to sit on store shelves. There's a lot of ways its used as an ingredient (and as a food-like substance with the proper additives) for both desserts and otherwise.
(Hm, that wasn't such a short aside. Ah wells...)
Here's a video of the hammerer and mochi flipping team showing of their skills making kusamochi:
(Hm, that wasn't such a short aside. Ah wells...)
Here's a video of the hammerer and mochi flipping team showing of their skills making kusamochi:
Sort of looks like they're beating up on that one ghost from Ghostbusters, doesn't it?
Getting back on track: the delightful East Asian perennial with the charming scientific name of Artemisia princeps -- aka yomogi. People in East Asia have a tradition of using it for feminine complaints, but that's not all it's used for. Plug yomogi into a general shopping site like Amazon or whatever, and you'll see a very random assortment of products, and the usual stuff like mochi, powdered yomogi and seeds for growing your own yomogis -- we're talking soap, some kind of foot pads/wipes, facial masks, even some kind of pelvic corrective hot water bottle cushion for women in "yomogi". It's definitely part of the herbal health scene, it looks, as it's used to put the moxa in moxibustion.
Unusual and slightly surprising uses aside, apparently people use it to flavor things. Young leaves (harvested in spring and blanched), are put in foods (like soup, dango, o-hitashi and rice).
If you can't get mugwort for your kusa mochi, that's okay, because tradition allows for other grasses like it that you can sub. (I don't know what those grasses are, but they're out there.)
Aight, now for some history on this thing, so you'll feel all awesome and knowledgeable should you come across it and/or be eatin' it.
Waaay back in the Heian period, like the first part of it, there was this one day, the third day of the third month. This day was then known as the infamous sounding Day of the Snake. On it, people in Japan ate kusamochi -- though their kusamochi used cudweed (gogyō or 御形), known alternately by the name/phrase "mother child grass" (hahakogusa or 母子草). (For any botany enthusiasts out there, the scientific name for this one is Gnaphalium affine).
The reason for the kusamochi on the Day of the Snake, was because the Day of the Snake was a time to get rid of pollution. Spring greens, now in rice cake form!
This tradition came about because hahakogusa had a tradition in China: it was thought that it had such a powerful smell that it gave evil a great big smack on the olfactory receptors, keeping it well away from people. (They used other plants tradition also was a thing in Japan for a time -- and kind of still is).
But wait, I hear you say, isn't the third day of the third month Girls' Day/Hina Matsuri? Yep. The Girls' Day you read of today came out of the Day of the Snake -- the switch happened in the Edo period. In spite of all the emphasis on the dolls, Girls' Day is still a day of purification.
So on to modern day uses. Kusa mochi still is used for Hina Matsuri, though it's not the only official sweet of the day (at least one that I know of is hishi mochi -- diamond shaped mochi that has three layers: pink, white and green). It's also a dessert just generally associated with spring -- people use it in situations where they want to be historical and seasonal (like in kaiseki or a Girls' Day tea ceremony).
As for ways people serve kusa mochi up, I've seen it made plain as well as kusamochi a la daifuku (filled with anko)... Curiously, one book, which was about tea ceremonies, said you're supposed to shape your kusamochi into a hat. That's the only place that I've happened across that's mentioned this hat, that I know. Sounds interesting, though. However they look, I bet they'd make a really different St. Patrick's Day dish, for sure!
References:
Happy year of the rooster! (Next year's the year of the dog, starting Febuary 16th -- pass it on!)
"Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts"; Haruo Shirane; 2012
"Kaiseki: The Exquisite Cuisine of Kyoto's Kikunoi Restaurant"; Yoshihiro Murata; 2006
"Chado the Way of Tea: A Japanese Tea Master's Almanac"; Sasaki Sanmi; 2002
"Lake Biwa: Interactions between Nature and People". Hiroya Kawanabe, Machiko Nishino, Masayoshi Maehata (editors); 2012
