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Horse chestnut mochi
Students diligently peel the skins off of horse chestnuts. 99.12.01/ Temperature: 3C/ Weather: Partly Cloudy/ Wind Direction: N
Current Location: Ogunimachi, 38 03 42 N 139 45 33 E
Distance Traveled: 0 km (Children's Point)Day two of Hokubu Elementary School's search for the wisdom of food continued this morning as students visited a classmate's grandmother to learn about making horse chestnut mochi (pounded rice). The day's activities are a continuation of the students' investigation of 'Future Foods.' (See Wisdom report #079)
In times of hardship in Japan there have developed many clever ways to supplement nutrition to meals. What started out as such an innovation in times of need has turned into a healthy and tasty treat. Students of Hokubu Elementary discovered horse chestnut mochi through the efforts of one of their classmates.
As a student pounds horse chestnut mochi, Mrs. Saito turns the mochi. Students all gathered at the rear of their classmate's house to observe and actually help prepare horse chestnuts to be pounded in with mochi. Surrounded in snow covered mountains, students listened attentively as Mrs. Saito explained how the bitterness is removed from the horse chestnuts. "Ooh, it's bitter," said one student cringing slightly. He had tasted a horse chestnut yet to complete the bitterness removal process. "This isn't so bad," said another student after tasting one that had completed the process. The Japanese have been successful in creating delicious foods out of inedible fruits of nature. Persimmons is one example (see Wisdom report #062); horse chestnuts is another.
Once the hard work of pounding the mochi was complete, students sat around and had a delicious feast. Once we had a quick feel for what the long preparation process entails (peeling, soaking and more soaking), Mrs. Saito, one of the sixth grader's grandmother, placed the horse chestnut powder and pounding rice into the mortar and began to mash it gently. The sticky mass stuck to the end of the pestle as she pulled it away from the mortar. Students stepped back as she began pounding. They jumped further back as small droplets of water and mochi spurted out in all directions when she pound the pestle against the mortar.
Each of the students took their turn getting used to handling the large pestle. By the second round of mochi, their confidence had grown and they were swinging the pestle with ease.
Pounding the mochi was just the beginning of the day's event. Thereafter we separated the mochi into small balls and dipped them in sesame, sweet soybean flour , Fermented soy beans, soup, and sweet beans to make our afternoon lunch menu. Smiles and praises of "yummy" filled the room as we all tried out all of the different types of mochi.
Towards the end of our visit, a question and answer question session was held with Mrs. Saito. Overlapping with thoughts from yesterday's activities, Mrs. Saito told the students how in times of scarce food, they did every little thing they could in order to increase the volume and nutrition of what they had. Horse chestnut mochi used to be a necessity. However, it has become a symbol of healthy food. This fits right along with the students theme of future foods .
Sometimes I think that wisdom is being able to teach the clever innovations of living that have been passed down in one's own community. It can be something as simple as setting persimmons out to sundry or something as time-consuming and complicated as making horse chestnut mochi. Mrs. Saito appeared glorious and wise teaching the students of Hokubu Elementary.
Over the past two days, the amount of knowledge about healthy foods in their region that the students of Hokubu have taught me, the actual experience they have in preparing such dishes, and a new awareness of the value of such foods reflect the wisdom of Hokubu students.
It is my will that this should mark a new beginning for the students of Hokubu. Now that they have discover a bit of local wisdom, their next step may be to consider what they can do to foster wisdom within themselves or what they can do to promote the wisdom of healthy foods that they have discovered.
I thank them all for their great contributions to all of our exploration for wisdom and wish them well in taking another step further.
Greg
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