The Hendersons in Himeji: Mochi Making

Sunday morning we were back up and running at 8:00 because they were having a mochi making event down the street from our apartment. We thought this would be a great way to spend sometime with people in our community, and also a couple more hours with Andre before he left. Now if you have never made mochi before, you are totally missing out! It started with tons of rice boiling in pots on top of some coal burners. Once the rice was cooked they would then move it to a giant hollowed out tree trunk where they would then smash it with a huge wooden mallet. I know some of you are reading this and thinking that I have to be making this up, but its true, and we even posted a video to prove it. So here's how it went. Once the rice was in the tree trunk bowl they gently started mashing it down with the mallet. Some of the towns people would start slamming it right away, but that made rice splatter everywhere. (I still have rice juice on my jacket) So as they gently mash the rice it slowly became more of a dough than a bunch of pieces of rice. Now when it gets to right consistency, the fun begins. All of the sudden they start wielding the mallet like its an ax. I'm pretty sure that some of these guys had some pent up aggression to let out or something because it seemed like they were trying to drive this ball of rice dough through the tree trunk and into the ground. It was fierce... but it doesn't stop there. As these men are wielding this huge mallet there is a little old woman that reaches into the bowl and moves the rice ball around. So they are bent down on the side and right after the mallet hits and starts going back up they start rolling the ball around and adding water to make sure it doesn't stick to the bowl. As they are doing this the aggressive guy is already recoiling and bringing the mallet right back down. At some points the little old lady would hold on to the dough and stretch it to the side of the bowl and the mallet would come down while she was still holding on... she would the fold it over and the mallet would come down again. I still to this day have no idea how someone didn't lose a finger or get cracked in the head. Check out the video... their timing is pretty incredible. Once the dough was thoroughly mixed they would grab it out of the bowl and a bunch of ladies would make it into little balls. We watched this process for about an hour before I was handed a mallet. Now I had a problem. I didn't want to be the crazy American that got over zealous with the mallet and sent a little old lady to an untimely death, but I also didn't want to be a sissy and hit the mochi like a little girl. My solution... wait until she moved safely away and then give it a good whack. Well the little old lady didn't like this very much because there was supposed to be a rhythm to this mochi pounding business. She would yell and scream at me to hit the mochi and I would politely pretend that I had no idea what she was saying and wait until her head and hands were nowhere near the ball of rice. There were a couple of times that she stretched the dough and held on with her hand on the edge of the bowl and as I realized it I would stop my down swing and just stare at her, but she wouldn't budge. So I carefully gave it a well guided tap and she would always look at me as if to say "your a big sissy" and I would politely look at her as if to say "Lady, its not going to be my fault if you don't make it to your 91st birthday". After a few of these exchanges she yelled something and another guy came and took the mallet from me. I had fulfilled my purpose without any bloodshed. After all of the rice balls were made we were ate a few and headed home. All in all it was a great morning. We had a wonderful time participating in this traditional Japanese experience.