Subject: JA Food: Osechi Ryouri
Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu to all on the list!
Today in Japan, people will be eating osechi ryouri
(New Year cuisine) while they visit with family and
friends. Will JAs be eating osechi ryouri while
watching Bowl Games? :-)
Richard Hosking, a food anthropologist (what a great job!)
living in Hiroshima, in his "Dictionary of Japanese
Food: Ingredients and Culture" (Tuttle 1997) writes
that the components of osechi ryouri vary considerably
from family to family. Was this variation brought to
America? What do members of this list think of as osechi ryouri?
I did not know about osechi ryouri until last year,
when I saw prepared trays of it for sale at the local
Japanese food store. This year I saw kagami mochi
(a mochi snowman with a Satsuma orange on top) for
the first time. It seems my parents (early 1960s
immigrants) chose not to keep osechi ryouri or anything
about the Oshougatsu tradition. It is only the Most
Important Holiday of the Year in Japan!
Maybe it was because there is only one day off here,
as opposed to three (this year is an exception, for
some workers, anyway), nengajou get sent earlier as
Xmas cards, and there are no relatives here to visit,
grandparents from whom to get otoshidama, or a Buddhist
temple at which to hear joya no kane (bell ringing).
As for osechi ryouri, maybe it is too much work to
bother with if no relatives are coming over. I bought
an osechi ryouri tray from the store this year, and
it looks beautiful (not to mention delicious).
Itadakimasu!
Subject: Re: JA Food: Osechi Ryouri
> It seems my parents (early 1960s immigrants) chose not to keep
> osechi ryouri or anything about the Oshougatsu tradition.
> It is only the Most Important Holiday of the Year in Japan!
This is fascinating to me because I am figuring out how little of the New
Year's "tradition" my family practiced, even though we made a huge feast. My
issei mom for some reason or other never made it a big deal holiday like it
is in Japan, but today I am dragging her to a JA friend's family New Year
blowout, where there will be tons of traditional food. Not just sahsimi and
mochi (helped prepare both), but this morning for instance, my friend and I
had ozoni, something my mom never made unless it was the azuki sweet soup
with mochi in it.
So I guess there are lots of variations of New Year celebrations even among
Japanese!
Subject: Re: JA Food: Osechi Ryouri
Minasama, akemashite omedetougozaimasu!
New Year's was certainly a big holiday during my childhood, not just for my
family, but the Japanese/Japanese American community where I grew up in the South.
Mom would certainly make the typical dishes such a ozouni, kuro
mame, konbumaki etc., etc. -- or at a very minimum, would make ozouni.
Usually this was to take to the Consul General's home for a large New Year's
party for the entire community. It was generally a large, formal affair.
We'd have to get dressed up (sometimes in kimono, or nice Western dress).
Many of the women had spent days preparing osechi ryouri on a large scale
for the 200 people who usually attended. The home (albeit a mansion) was
always crowded and I remember having to eat ozouni and sekihan standing up.
My parents would join other adults in singing the Japanese national anthem,
while us kids would get bored and start running up and down staircases or
the grounds. Certainly, we restricted our celebration of the New Year to one
or two days, because we had to return to work or school!
My mother also insisted that we ring in the New Year's Southern style, too, so
after returning from the Consul General's (ryoujikan, we always called it),
she start making black eyed peas and rice for dinner.
I don't know what the community in my home town does these days.
Now I am on the West Coast, and I sometimes join other Nikkei friends
for osechi ryouri at their home at New Year's.
Come the Lunar New Year, I will likely celebrate again with the family of
my husband (Chinese American, first-generation by their
counting system).
Subject: Re: JA Food: Osechi Ryouri
This is a post from another listgroup, but I thought it was interesting
and pertinent to post here. The hard part of o-sechi used to be making it,
but these days, it is so easy to buy the components (well, for some of us, especially those living in
Southern California), that we could really eat o-sechi during other parts of the year.
(And if we did, maybe it would keep down the price of store-made o-sechi.)
> Did you eat "o-sechi ryouri" this New Year ?
> "O-sechi ryouri" now indicates festive food for the New Year.
> But originally it meant festive food not only for the New Year
> but also for seasonal festivals of the year such as Joushi-no-sekku
> (the third, March), Tango-no-sekku (the fifth, May), Shichiseki-no-sekku
> (the seventh, July) and Chouyou-no-sekku (the ninth, September).
> "O-sechi ryouri" is a Nyoubou-kotoba (the language of court ladies in
> former times) of "Sekku-ryouri" and it has gradually indicated festive
> food only for the New Year.
Subject: Re: JA Food: Osechi Ryouri
Having just returned from Japan after being there for New Year's it was
interesting to compare/contrast Japanese American versions of what they
think Japanese people in Japan traditionally serve during Oshogatsu.
Japanese American Oshogatsu is more like an multi-ethnic open house with
token servings of traditional kuro-mame, tazukuri, kazunoko, kombu, etc.
