The Mochi Mash

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The Mochi Mash. Okayama Oomoto members make rice ball the old-fashioned way

By Bill Roberts

Once a year, usually in December, Oomoto members in Okayama make mochi the old-fashioned way following their monthly religious service. It is their version of the homemade ice cream socials we had in the Methodist Church of my youth.

Mochi, which means rice ball, is a staple of Japanese cuisine. They make pasty dough from the rice then roll it into lumps larger than a golf ball but smaller than a tennis ball, usually with some kind of stuffing in the center. Sweet bean paste is a common filling. Sometimes they mash black soybeans or other ingredients with the rice and roll them all up together. Mochi can also be dried then grilled over charcoal to nice effect.

Mochi is not a natural taste bud pleaser for the Western palate. It is an acquired taste, in part because most mochi is made in a machine and sits in the store for sometime before it is bought and eaten. Fresh, homemade mochi is as different from store-bought mochi as fresh asparagus is from the canned variety.

The people of Oomoto believe part of their mission is to carry on traditional arts of all kinds that have long since been forgotten by most Japanese. So in Okayama, and elsewhere in Oomoto, they occasionally make mochi the old-fashioned way. Here’s how they do it.

They start with a big pot of fresh steamed rice.

They dump the rice into a bowl carved from stone, which sits on a knee-high wooden stand. This particular batch had black soybeans in it.

Mochi mashers start their engines. First, they just push it around gently. If they mash too hard at first the loose rice flies from the bowl.

Back in the kitchen they prepare the fillings. This is sweet bean paste.

Finally it is full-throttle mochi mashing: Each man alternately takes an over-the-head swing at the mochi as if he were breaking rocks in prison.

Once the mochi is mashed pretty well it needs some turning by hand.

Here is the dangerous part. Near the end, one masher keeps giving the dough good hard knocks. In between each swing a brave helper turns the dough quickly. Timing is everything.