Today we arrived at Mr. Kazy Okude's Farm, two hours north of Kyoto... Unexpectedly, we came across snow!
When we first got here we were welcomed
into Okude's 250 year old house, sat down with our shoes off, at a
row of low tables and were served some nice, hot rice tea. We had
some time to explore the area, before going off to make mochi
(Japanese rice cakes), in the traditional way.
To make the mochi we stood outside,
amongst the snow and mud, around a giant granite bowl.
Kazy's wife brought out a large bowl of freshly steamed rice, put it all in the warmed granite bowl, Ready to be stamped down to a mush with a wooden hammer the length of an arm. Once it was like a sticky dough, this tiny old lady lifted the two kilo dough into a separate bamboo bowl with rice flour.
Kazy's wife brought out a large bowl of freshly steamed rice, put it all in the warmed granite bowl, Ready to be stamped down to a mush with a wooden hammer the length of an arm. Once it was like a sticky dough, this tiny old lady lifted the two kilo dough into a separate bamboo bowl with rice flour.
After rolling it all into individual
balls, we ate it with a Japanese sweet bean paste azuki and matcha (ground green tea powder) sugar
mixture... I liked it but found it left a bit of a gluggy feeling in
my stomach.
On the way here, everyone was tired and
cold. But I am looking forward to our stay here and Kyoto.
Lily 28-3-2017
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