There is a blend of sophistication, beauty, simplicity and cuteness in namagashi, especially Kyoto namagashi, that is just unlike anything else in the foodie universe. In food and non-food related design, the traditional Japanese sense is something from another, bygone world, but still seems so essential even in our time.

Year of the Ox Namagashi

Eto: Year of the Ox Motif in Food
I came across this New Year’s delightful and whimsical namagashi at Toraya the other day. 2009 is the Year of the Ox in the Chinese Zodiac system, or Eto 干支 in Japanese. Toraya is a very old and famous wagashi shinise in Kyoto that is probably best known for it’s sweet yokan ‘jelly’ made from azuki beans. Toraya also has a store in Paris.

Year of the Ox Plate

If you are a regular KyotoFoodie visitor, you may recall seeing these plates before. Each one in the set has one of the 12 Eto animals on it.

Year of the Ox Namagashi

Cinnamon Cow Spot
Sweetened bean paste is sculpted into this ox-like form that though extremely simple and cute, does not come off as childish or cheap. Red and white are colors associated with celebration in Japan.

The brown ‘spot’ on the ox head is a simple brushing of cinnamon. This is really great. Cinnamon came to Japan centuries ago and is still an exotic taste to many people, it used in the Kyoto’s Yatsuhashi wagashi souvenirs for sale where ever there are tourists in the city.

Year of the Ox Namagashi

Year of the Ox Namagashi


How Did it Taste?
I don’t recall ever having namagashi flavored with cinnamon before and I really enjoyed this. It had the conventional sweet bean namagashi taste, but made more complex with the addition of cinnamon. This, combined with the playful visual element made this namagashi a homerun for me.

Difference Between Kyoto and Tokyo (Edo) Wagashi
Kyoto: How much can be taken away and still say, ox (or whatever the theme is)?
Tokyo: How can we emphasize the ox theme?

Visually, Kyoto wagashi is different from that of Tokyo. Kyoto’s is simple, refined and subtle. Tokyo’s is more garish and pronounced. I think of it as the difference between art and communication; communication as in PR and visual design.

Year of the Ox Namagashi

Nodokana Ashita and Eternal Kyoto BS in the Year of the Ox
Toraya’s name for this namagashi is Nodokana Ashita のどかな朝, poetically meaning ‘peaceful and mild morning/tomorrow’. Toraya’s explanation of this namagashi says that “it suggests cows are eating grass in a pasture peacefully in soft, spring sunshine”. This is typical Kyoto shinise BS. There is nothing about this namagashi that suggests eating grass, a farm, spring or sunshine. Because Kyoto is Kyoto and shinise are shinise, they can often get away with just making up meaning that just isn’t there. Many people will literally eat it up. This is nothing more than sales talk, shinise style. The person who created this doesn’t believe these words. Not all shinise do this, but don’t be taken in by it.

The Japan Dento Spell
Because something is old and rare in the world today, many people are willing to believe something about it that just isn’t true. I remember seeing an article on Kyoto Journal a few years back. Someone photographed a concrete covered mountainside in Japan that had been completely raped by the construction of a new highway. The patterns created by the different planes of concrete stuck me as extremely ugly and completely un-designed. It was creation of a gear head with a calculator. However, the author of the article, under the spell of traditional Japanese aesthetics said that it was a typical example of how Japanese designed everything to be beautiful. Take a walk around Tokyo, Osaka, or even a lot of Kyoto, look at the modern city and tell yourself that Japanese design everything to be beautiful.

Don’t be cast under this spell, there is plenty in Kyoto and Japan that is authentic to be be inspired by.

It is too bad that Toraya makes up this kind of exaggerated sales talk because this wagashi, on it’s own, without any BS is, in fact, completely remarkable. Wouldn’t you agree?

Year of the Ox Namagashi – Cross Section

I cleanly cut this in half to illustrate how the namagashi is constructed. Japanese wouldn’t cut it apart like this.

Year of the Ox Namagashi – Package

This is what it looks like when you get it home and open the box.

link: Eto 干支 (Chinese Zodiac) Wikipedia article

link: Yokan 羊羹 Wikipedia article

link: Toraya English Website

A lobster, mochi, kelp, daidai- orange and persimmon offering to god, crab served amid fresh snow covered bamboo grass, red snapper sashimi served in a basket of green bamboo, pine bough and plum blossom;  it’s Oshogatsu Ryori at Kichisen.

Several hundred boxes of Osechi have been delivered, this is the most important celebration of the year in Japan, you would think that everyone at Kichisen would finally be taking a few days off work. But Tanigawa explains that a proper Kyoto restaurant must be open and serve customers during this important time of year. Kichisen offers Oshogatsu Kaiseki Ryori, Japanese New Year’s Kaiseki Cuisine, and it is as beautiful as it is delicious.

New Year’s Kaiseki
Shogatsu in Japan is a lot like Christmas, it is a magical time and custom and decoration abound. In addition to sublime and intricate cuisine, Kichisen is decorated for the season.

Kichisen Gate with Shogatsu Decoration and Candle Lanterns

Kichisen’s Oshogatsu Kaiseki includes some 13 courses, here we feature 4 of them: five bite-sized selections from osechi ryori, clear soup with clam paste garnished with gold leaf, red snapper sashimi with Seville orange-shoyu, sekihan mochi rice with azuki beans and chestnuts and finally crab served in a snowstorm.

Sakizuke Course: Appetizer

Sakizuke is the first course in kaiseki and is an appetizer. The two most prominent features this serving is the sakaki leaf and the cow on the lid of the ceramic serving tray. Shinto gods are believed to dwell in the sakaki tree and here it’s leaves are used to invite god to dinner as well. 2009 is the year of the cow, therefore a cow appears. The chopsticks are special too, both ends are tapered, the tapered end is used for eating. Symbolically the meal is shared with god.

The sakizuke course contains a few bites of 5 dishes that appeared in osechi ryori; including baby carp simmered in sweetened shoyu with ginger, kuruma-ebi (shrimp), hirame kombumaki (flounder with ginger rolled in kelp), and black bean with tsukushi bud.

Sakizuke: Appetizer

Sakizuke: Appetizer

Sakizuke: Appetizer – detail

Sakizuke: Budo Mame, Literally Grape Beans

Shiru Mono Course: Hamaguri Shinjo

Shiru-mono is a soup course. Here shinjo, also known as kamaboko-like fish paste is made with hamaguri clams, this is the white block that is garnished with kinome sansho leaves and gold leaf. The sea vegetable in the broth is called shinbaso, literally god horse grass, the origin of the name is interesting. A Japanese historic figure Minamotono Yoshitsune had to travel a long distance and his horse was exhausted. When he stopped to rest, locals fed his horse this sea vegetable and his horse made a quick recovery. Neither Miwa nor I had heard of this sea vegetable and it is quite expensive.

Shiru Mono: Hamaguri Shinjo

Shiru Mono: Hamaguri Shinjo – detail

Mukozuke Course: Tai and Ika Sashimi

This course is completely over the top. A whole tai, red snapper is served in a green bamboo hoekago (a portable shrine for the god of business called Ebisu) basket with a pine bough and budding plum branch for a roof. Pine is a very majestic and auspicious symbol in Japanese culture and plums blossom just after oshogatsu, the coming of spring. Ika, squid sashimi is included along with a simmered baby daikon radish and extremely rare black mushroom. The dipping sauce, momiji-oroshi, is shoyu with grated daikon and a tiny bit of chili pepper and a generous squeeze of the Japanese orange called daidai. Kichisen’s momiji-orishi dipping sauce is sublime!

Hoekago Tai and Ika Sashimi with Daidai Orange Dipping Sauce

Hoekago Tai and Ika Sashimi with Daidai Orange Dipping Sauce

Hoekago Tai and Ika Sashimi – detail

Notice the baby daikon and the black mushroom (triangle).

Hoekago Tai and Ika Sashimi with Daidai Orange Dipping Sauce – detail

Kichisen’s momiji-oroshi with daidai orange juice is sublime.

Hoekago Tai and Ika Sashimi Served

Gohan Course: Sekihan with Kachiguri

Sekihan, or ‘red rice’ is mochi rice cooked with azuki beans and served on celebratory occasions in Japan. Kichisen adds dried chestnuts, kachiguri. Kachiguri literally means ‘victory chestnut’, they were eaten by samurai before battle. The azuki must be extra special, I have never seen sekihan rice so deeply colored before. The color of the cooked rice comes from the azuki beans.

The ceramic container is in the shape of kohaku mochi, literally red and white mochi that is eaten at New Year’s, weddings, birth of a child and so on. The golden Chinese character on the top of the cover is kotobuki 壽, meaning congratulations.

Gohan: Sekihan Mochi Rice with Kachiguri

Gohan: Sekihan Mochi Rice with Kachiguri

Gohan: Sekihan Mochi Rice with Kachiguri – detail

Gohan: Sekihan Mochi Rice with Kachiguri – detail

The rice is really colored by the azuki!

Gohan: Sekihan – Kyoto-style Decoration

This is really ‘Kyoto’, the most extravagant part of this piece, the golden leafed area, is inside the cover. Many diners would miss this entirely. This is common in Kyoto architecture and kimono as well, the most luxuiriant part, the most expensive material is hidden, or at least difficult to find.

Gohan: Sekihan Mochi Rice with Kachiguri Served

Secchu no Kani: Crab Amid the Snow

This dish is way, way, way over the top. The scene is a winter mountain snowscape; crab leg trees in the snow and bamboo grass covered in snow made of shaved ice. The dipping sauce is kani miso, which is crab internals and vinegar.

Oshogatsu Ryori: Secchu-no-kani (Crab and Bamboo Amid the Snow)

Oshogatsu Ryori: Secchu-no-kani (Crab and Bamboo Amid the Snow)

Oshogatsu Ryori: Secchu-no-kani (Crab and Bamboo Amid the Snow)

Oshogatsu Ryori: Secchu-no-kani (Crab and Bamboo Amid the Snow)

Oshogatsu Ryori: Secchu-no-kani (Crab and Bamboo Amid the Snow)

Those snow covered bamboo leaves are exactly like I have seen them in the mountains. Amazing!

Shogatsu New Year’s Decoration and Ikebana Flower Arrangements

The prominence of food in Japanese culture, even in decoration is astounding, here are a few examples from Kichisen.

Oshogatsu New Year’s Decoration: Genkan Entry

Oshogatsu New Year’s Decoration: Genkan Entry – Kagami Mochi

Orange, dried persimmons, mochi, dried kelp, fern leaves and a lobster make up this kagami mochi offering in the entry.

Oshogatsu New Year’s Decoration: Dining Room

Food stuffs make up a central element of this decoration: heads of rice and a huge sheet of dried kelp. The colored string-like elements are flax which traditionally was used to make linen in Japan.

Oshogatsu New Year’s Decoration: Dining Room – detail

Oshogatsu New Year’s Decoration: Dining Room Flower Arrangement

Shogatsu ikebana flower arrangement in the tokonoma alcove of a dining room.

Oshogatsu New Year’s Decoration: Tea Ceremony Room Flower Arrangement

This intimate room is for the tea ceremony, kaiseki is born out of the tea ceremony. This tokonoma arrangement is in green bamboo with willow branches and a camellia flower. I have never seen an aesthetic like this outside of Japan.

Oshogatsu New Year’s Decoration: Tokonoma Alcove Flower Arrangement

Another bamboo, willow and camellia arrangement in a dining room tokonoma alcove.