Auspicious food for New Year
Jan 8th, 2010 by Ad Blankestijn
Here is a plate of New Year food, of which most items have an auspicious connotation: Starting at the bottom and going around clockwise:
- kazunoko or herring roe – the name sounds the same as “many children”
- Koya tofu, freeze-dried tofu
- the black pouches next to that: konbumaki or kelp rolls, sounds like “yoroboku” or “to enjoy oneself”
- renkon or lotus root -see my previous post;
- kinton, puree of sweet chestnuts
- tazukuri, small dried sardines; “tazukuri” means “preparing the rice fields” and this term sounds like “otsukuri”, which in its turn is another word for sashimi, raw fish. In other words, “tazukuri” is “sashimi for farmers”, who could not eat real sashimi in the past as they didn’t live near the sea…
-datemaki, rolled omelet
- and in the middle: red (pink) and white slices of kamaboko fish paste
There was no space left for the black beans, kuromame, which sound like “mame ni ikiru”, to have a healthy life.
