By Masato Kusakari
Japanese families display enormous rice cakes called kagami-mochi, namely, mirror rice cake, during the New Year Holiday. The kagami-mochi is as large as a volleyball, but it is flat like a pie.
The kagami-mochi is a sacred food for Japanese. The New Year Holiday is for Japanese to welcome the god of the incoming year, and the god must be welcomed to their houses and entertained by the special rice cake.
The incoming year god is called Toshi-gami-sama, namely, Mr. God of the Year. The god visits everyone’s house on January 1, and after a few days the god leaves back to the mountain. Then people are allowed to eat the rice cake. People eat it on a certain day, which is called “the day to open the mirror.”
They believe the rice cake has special powers: they will not get sick and can avoid disasters by eating the mirror cake on the mirror opening day. To sum up, kagami-mochi represents traditional beliefs that have been passed from generation to generation.
Photo by Masato Kusakari
