Japanese Cuisine - Dishes For Special Occasions

Dishes For Special Occasions

In Japanese tradition some dishes are strongly tied to a festival or event. These dishes include:

  • Botamochi, a sticky rice dumpling with sweet azuki paste served in spring, while the term Hagi/Ohagi is used in autumn.
  • Chimaki (steamed sweet rice cake): Tango no Sekku and Gion Festival.
  • Hamo (a type of fish, often eel) and somen: Gion Festival.
  • Osechi: New Year.
  • Sekihan, literally "red rice", is served for any celebratory occasion. It is usually sticky rice cooked with azuki, or red bean, which gives the rice its distinctive red color.
  • Soba: New Year's Eve. This is called toshi koshi soba (ja:年越しそば) (literally "year crossing soba").
  • Chirashizushi, Ushiojiru (clear soup of clams) and amazake: Hinamatsuri.

In some regions every 1st and 15th day of the month people eat a mixture of rice and azuki (azuki meshi (小豆飯), see Sekihan).

Read more about this topic:  Japanese Cuisine

Famous quotes containing the words dishes, special and/or occasions:

    No more anything to drink;
    Leave those dishes in the sink.
    Herman Hupfeld (1894–1951)

    I have a special grudge against those who have the same faults as I do.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.
    Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)