Why the New Year in Japan Starts With a Warming Bowl of Mochi Soup

I grew up in a big, busy city called Mito, north of Tokyo. The week before New Year’s, my mother would prepare osechi ryori, assorted cold dishes for sharing with relatives and friends dropping by to wish us a happy new year. But on the first day of the new year, nobody drops by — it’s a day families spend together. And it’s on that first day that you make something hot: ozoni, a special New Year’s soup with a dashi or miso broth, vegetables, and a little meat or fish cake, topped with grilled mochi.

My mother did most of the cooking in our household, but my father always made the ozoni. He was an accountant and had his office attached to the house. In it, he had a gas space heater, and he would grill the mochi on the top of the heater. I remember being in second and third grade and how much I loved what my father was doing, and how I loved watching as he cooked. My mother would warm up dashi broth and some carrots and some yam or potato, finishing it with a little soy sauce. When the mochi finished grilling, my father brought it to our side of the house, and we’d all get served. 

When I was in my 20s, I came to the United States and got married and started my own family. I began making ozoni for my children and my wife every New Year’s at our home in Chicago. I don’t make osechi ryori — it’s a lot of work! — but I always make ozoni. I follow my father’s rules: I always use square mochi. The protein is chicken. There will be carrots, sometimes taro root, shiitake mushrooms, and a little bit of spinach for color. It’s the first thing we eat on New Year’s Day. You wake up a little bit late because you were up late, and it’s the first meal of the year. Most of us eat ours out of a miso bowl, but my son always says, “Dad, I want to have more,” so I serve his in a ramen bowl. 

Ozoni itself is very simple. It’s very subtle, not spicy, not salty. It is not challenging to cook; it doesn’t call for complicated culinary technique. But for me, and most Japanese people, so much memory is involved — everybody has a story about ozoni, about how, when they were a child, they spent the most important day of the year with their mother and father. If you ask 10 Japanese people, 10 different stories will come back to you. For me, it reminds me of my father spending a little bit of time with me when I was child. 

Ozoni is not everyday food. It’s not even a once-a-week thing — it’s a once-a-year dish. And every year you make it, things are a little bit different, something new is happening. So I want to stick with the same way of making it each time, and with my father’s memory. Ozoni is not a creative dish, but I want to keep it that way. It makes me feel an appreciation of where I come from.