Mochi

This is a very special post for me. Mainly for 2 reasons.

1. This happens to be my 400th blog post. Yeah. Persistence.
2. A friend of mine just came back from Japan and got us a big box of Mochi. I managed to finish half of it in a matter of 2 hours. Now I am delighted, contended and have a sugar high as I write this post

So to celebrate this momentous occasion (and my sugar high) I shall write about this amazing Japanese sweet that I have been eating for the last 2 hours. So what exactly is mochi? It's a rice cake made out of glutinous rice pounded into a paste and molded into a shape with a sweet paste filling inside it. The variety that I just ate had a matcha filling (Japanese Green Tea).

Now like everything else Japanese I have talked about here before (Ronin, Ramen, Fine Dining,  Wasabi, Pocari Sweat , Poke-Yoke, Umbrellas, etc.) this innocuous looking dessert has an astonishing way of making it. The glutinous rice is actually pounded using a Wooden mallet and someone's hand in an alternate rhythm! And if that doesn't sound dangerous enough, I recommend you watch the video below. Mind you, it's his actual speed, the video speed hasn't been increased:

Now I know this is in no way a lethal food like the Fugu. While eating the Fugu, you are trusting the chef with your life (literally). To quote Wikipedia verbatim about Fugu, it says:

Fugu poison is 1200 times stronger than cyanide, and there is no known antidote.

 Wow. So much for satisfying your taste buds (a few seconds of pleasure?)

Anyway, coming back to my main topic of Mochi, I understand that these days many Mochis are prepared by industrial machines pounding the glutinous rice, and not many chefs risk their hands to make the perfect Mochi. However, I still think of all the effort people put in to make the "perfect" food, just so that someone somewhere can fest on a box of finger licking good Mochis and write a blog!