Author: Iris

January 7th, also called jinjitsu, traditionally marks the last day of the New Year’s festivities, and of course the Japanese celebrate it with special food. In this case, they eat nanakusa gayu – seven herb soup – which gives an alternative name to this day: nanakusa no sekku, the Festival of Seven Herbs. Eating nanakusa gayu is supposed to promote health during winter, and give one a long life, of course. 

Besides that, after all the gluttony of New Year’s feasting, nanakusa gayu is also meant to rest the stomach a bit, and indeed, the soup is based on okayu, a simple, soft, and very bland rice porridge that people usually eat when they are sick. They then add the following seven herbs to the soup: water dropwort (seri), shepherd’s purse (nazuna), cudweed (hahagokusa), chickweed (hakobe), nipplewort (koonitabiraku), turnip (kabu), and radish (daikon).

Of course, it is now in the middle of winter, and these herbs are not easy to be gathered outside; note that in ancient times however, the festival would have been on the seventh day of the first month according to the lunar calendar, that is, about two months later than today. In any case, the modern Japanese do not forage outside, but rather in their nearest supermarket, where nanakusa can be bought in conveniently sized packs – or even, as I found out, as a dried mixture or in reheatable plastic bags complete with the finished rice porridge.

Even though my cooking skills are not exemplary, I did not stoop that low, but indeed bought the smallest pack of fresh nanakusa I could find and made my own rice porridge. The result was rather bland to be honest, but the tastes of the different herbs did come out very well this way.

Below is the recipe I used to make the nanakusa gayu from scratch. I will not post it in my washoku category because the herbs are pretty much impossible to find outside of Japan. However, if you feel like trying it anyway, you can use other herbs that you like or can find. 

Recipe for nanakusa gayu, seven herbs rice porridge (for two people)

– 2 cups rice (Japanese or risotto rice)
– 8 cups water
– 1 piece of kelp (optional)
– salt
Boil the rice with the water and salt until it has a very soft texture. There should still be some water left at the end. (Optional: you can add a piece of kelp to add some flavour, but remove it when the water starts boiling so the taste will not get bitter.)

– 1 cup of nanakusa or seven other herbs (nanakusa are: Japanese water dropwort, shepherd’s purse, cudweed, chickweed, nipplewort, turnip, and radish)
Clean the herbs and blanch them in boiling water, then drain, rinse, and cut in small pieces.

When the rice is finished, gently stir in the herbs and let them heat up for a minute or two. (*) That’s it! Enjoy!

(*) Alternatively, you can forgo the blanching if you add the herbs to the rice a bit earlier. I did it that way, and it tasted fine to me, which does not necessarily mean anything though…

As mentioned a week or two ago, at the end of November I went to a sake tasting. The person who conducted it was an American, and to be honest, I was slightly disappointed in the beginning. However, he turned out to really know his stuff and he was good at explaining things, so I was very happy in the end.

For example, I learned why on each bottle of sake there are two percentages given: The larger percentage indicates the milling rate, that is, how much the rice used was polished. The idea is that the smaller that milling rate (50% and lower, indicating more polishing), the more smooth the alcohol should taste. I say “should” because it is not always that clear-cut, or maybe my taste buds are not that refined. The smaller percentage indicated the alcohol percentage. Anything between 15 and 20% is standard, but recently, very light sake with around 8% alcohol only are produced as well, mostly to attract female customers.

Also, I have learnt that sake consists of rice, water, mold, and yeast. That means that the usual translation of sake as “rice wine” is misleading, it would be more accurate to speak of “rice beer”. Mostly, special rice is used for brewing, different to the one that is eaten. Interestingly, there is red rice that can be used for making sake. The result is something that has a very interesting taste – like European liqueur with a hint of soy sauce. It also has a distinctive red colour, most normal sake is colourless or at most slightly yellow only.

There are many sake breweries all over Japan, but Hyogo prefecture with the capital Kobe has the most. In Kyoto city, there are a number of sake breweries in Fushimi, and people claim that the water from there is especially good. Unfortunately, there are not many sake breweries that allow visitors, but every now and then, guided tours are offered. I will definitely look for one of those!

Sake brewing season is in winter when the rice has been harvested, from October to March. Over summer, the sake rests, and is afterwards bottled. The year and month of doing this is always noted on the bottle, and sake is best consumed within a month after bottling. It does not seem to age well since even our guide said the taste becomes “different” without going into details. That probably means it is awful for all but the biggest aficionados…

The most interesting information for me was that there are no sake sommeliers – you just drink it as you like it, hot or cold, with food or without… The most popular food to go with sake are tsukemono, Japanese pickles, apparently the equivalent to wine and cheese, or, more appropriately: beer and chips.

By the way: sake as we call it in the west simply means “alcohol” in Japanese, so if you want to order it here, you’ll have to use the term nihon shu, Japanese alcohol.