{"id":693,"date":"2008-01-16T22:54:36","date_gmt":"2008-01-16T13:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-01-16\/693"},"modified":"2008-01-16T22:54:36","modified_gmt":"2008-01-16T13:54:36","slug":"aburi-mochi-grilled-mochi-on-skewers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-01-16\/693","title":{"rendered":"Aburi-Mochi: Grilled Mochi on Skewers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 55mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>50 sec, f\/3.5, ISO 500 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\nMochi, Kinako, and Bamboo Skewers<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Dipping into my photo archives back to last February, I've been wanting\nto write about our visit to Ichiwa<\/a> in north-western Kyoto, a\nthousand<\/span>-year-old family-run purveyor of aburi-mochi<\/i> (\u3042\u3076\u308a\u9905 – “lightly grilled mochi”): grilled kinako\nmochi on skewers.<\/p>\n\n

Mochi<\/a><\/i> is\nbasically cooked sweet rice<\/a> that's been pulverized into a sticky,<\/span> gooey\npaste. Kinako<\/a> is flour\nmade from roasted soybeans.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 24mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>200 sec, f\/7.1, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\nUnassuming Shop<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The family started business in the second year of the reign of the\nemperor Chouhou<\/a> (\u9577\u4fdd<\/span>\uff12\u5e74), which would place it square on Year 1000 of\nthe western calendar. 1,008 years and 24 generations of history later, it's\ncurrently run by Mieko Hasegawa.<\/p>\n\n

I'm not sure how much stock to place in this talk of 1,000 years of\nhistory, because if you count two more generations for her current kids and\ngrandkids, that's still more than 37 years\/generation. That seems to be a\nbit<\/span> much — I'd expect closer to 20 years\/generation over the long\nhaul, which would be about 50 generations total.<\/p>\n\n

In any case, the shop is right next to Kyoto's Imamiya\nShrine<\/a> (which has been around since 994, six years longer than the\nshop). On the same<\/span> day we visited last February, I photographed<\/span> some very early\nplum blossoms<\/a> at the shrine. Blossoms before Valentine's Day!.<\/p>\n\n

I didn't have time to post much about it at the time because it was just\na few<\/span> days before Lightroom 1.0<\/span> was released<\/a> and I was<\/span> working like a\nmadman<\/span> on my Lightroom custom\nmetadata-viewer preset builder<\/a> (coincidentally, the picture of Anthony\non that post was taken just in front of the mochi shop).<\/p>\n\n

Almost a year delayed, I'm finally<\/span> getting around to posting about the\nmochi experience.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 17mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>45 sec, f\/3.5, ISO 500 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\nIt's Time To Make The Aburi-Mochi<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

In the view inside the shop shown above, I assume<\/span> that the lady sitting\nat center with the blue apron is the current 24th-generation proprietress,\nwith her daughter standing in the red check apron, and her granddaughters\nsitting at the table with her. She'd been the head of the shop since her\nmother passed away the previous year, at 90.<\/p>\n\n

They take a handfuls of bamboo skewers, roll grape-sized bits of sticky\nmochi in the kinako powder that covers the tatami-mat<\/a>\ntable. Besides imparting taste, the kinako powder serves the same\n“destickify” purpose as the flour did for the guy making udon noodles<\/a> I\nposted<\/span> about the other day.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 52mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 500 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 55mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>125 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 500 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Once they have enough for your order prepared, they bring them outside\nto the front of the shop where they have open hot coals, and grill them for\na few<\/span> minutes. I neglected<\/span> to get a picture<\/span> of that, but there's a nice<\/span> one\non this\npage<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Once they're done, they cover them in a sweet<\/span> kinako-based sauce, and\nbring them to you along with a cup<\/span> of tea.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 38mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>90 sec, f\/5, ISO 500 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\nSmall, but Filling<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

You get 15 skewers for 500 yen (about five bucks).<\/p>\n\n

This is the shop that invented this dish, but immediately across the\nstreet is another, although be warned that the other shop has been around\nonly a short<\/span> time (not much more than 400 years).<\/p>\n\n

At the time, I was still<\/span> getting used to my Nikkor\n17<\/span>-55\/2.8<\/a> lens, playing with its relatively shallow depth of\nfocus...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 55mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>180 sec, f\/2.8, ISO 500 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span><\/span>\nPlaying With Shallow Depth of Focus<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

If I had the chance to do that shot again, I'd stop the<\/span> lens down just a\nbit.<\/span> Hmmmm, I often<\/span> find myself in its general area, so I should<\/span> just stop\nin again for a snack.<\/span>..<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dipping into my photo archives back to last February, I've been wanting to write about our visit to Ichiwa in north-western Kyoto, a thousand-year-old family-run purveyor of aburi-mochi (\u3042\u3076\u308a\u9905 – \"lightly grilled mochi\"): grilled kinako mochi on skewers.<\/p>

Mochi is basically cooked sweet rice that's been pulverized into a sticky, gooey paste. Kinako is flour made from roasted soybeans.<\/p>

The family started business in the second year of the reign of the emperor Chouhou (\u9577\u4fdd\uff12\u5e74), which would place it square on Year 1000 of the western calendar. 1,008 years and 24 generations of history later, it's currently run by Mieko [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}