[GW Project] Kashiwa Mochi and Chimaki were 'preparations for children' by people of the past

📌 What you will learn in this article

• 🍡 Two slightly different wishes embedded in Kashiwa Mochi and Chimaki

• 🗺️ The somewhat grand reason why people in Kanto and Kansai eat different things

• 🛡️ The gentle idea that people of the past put into sweets

Conclusion: Wait, these weren't just ordinary Japanese sweets

Starting with the conclusion first.

Kashiwa Mochi and Chimaki were each a form of 'preparation for children' by people of the past, with separate wishes embedded in them.

In an era without educational insurance or disaster supplies, parents of the past wrapped their wishes in leaves and fed them to their children. Knowing the meaning makes them taste a little better.

In the middle of Golden Week, Children's Day. This year, I'm going to unwrap the leaves of the Japanese sweets and take a look inside. That's the story.

Introduction: Mochi wrapped in leaves that suddenly start appearing during Golden Week

When Golden Week arrives, the Japanese sweets section of the supermarket suddenly becomes lively.

Kashiwa Mochi.
Chimaki.

When I was a child, I just thought of them as 'things you eat on Children's Day.' With the excitement of the long weekend, I would just eat them, peel off the leaves, and that was it.

But looking at them again as an adult, it's a bit mysterious.

Why, instead of cake, pudding, or ice cream, is it specifically mochi wrapped in leaves?
Why, even though it's the same May 5th, do households split into 'Kashiwa Mochi camps' and 'Chimaki camps'?

When I looked into it, it was actually quite interesting.
I never expected to be taken all the way back to ancient China before the common era.

Honestly, at first, I just intended to 'lightly summarize the story of spring Japanese sweets.' I was surprised myself when, 30 minutes into my research, I ended up tracing it back toa Chinese poet from about 2300 years ago. I never imagined that such a long span of time was packed inside a mochi wrapped in a leaf.

As a Golden Week project, let's take a relaxed look at it.

Chapter 1: 'Children's Day' and 'Tango no Sekku' are actually different things

If you think about it, May 5th has two faces.

The first is the modern holiday, Children's Day. It is a national holiday established in 1948, and the law states that it is to 'value the personality of children, plan for their happiness, and thank their mothers.'

By the way, this phrase 'thank their mothers' is quietly important. Children's Day is not a day for boys or girls, but rather a day for all children and mothers, which is the correct interpretation under the law.

The second is the traditional event, Tango no Sekku. This was brought over from China during the Nara period and was originally an event to ward off evil spirits at the turn of the season.

🗓️ 5月5日は二段重ね

  上の段：こどもの日（法律上の祝日）
  下の段：端午の節句（昔からの伝統行事）
       ↓
  かしわ餅とちまきは、下の段に属している

To decipher the wishes embedded in the sweets, you need to look at the latter 'Sekku' rather than the former 'holiday'.

Chapter 2: Kashiwa Mochi is a wish for 'the family to continue'

In Kashiwa Mochi, the star is actually not the mochi inside.
The oak leaf on the outside is the main part.

Oak leaves have a somewhat unusual characteristic. Even when they wither in autumn, they do not fall off. They remain on the tree through the winter, and only fall off in the spring after new buds appear.

People in the past interpreted this as follows.

'The parent generation continues to watch over the next generation until they grow up'

What I find romantic is that they considered this a symbol of 'the family line not dying out = prosperity of descendants.' This was a huge hit in the samurai society of the Edo period, which valued family succession. It seems it was even served in the Ooku of Edo Castle.

By the way, Kashiwa Mochi at that time was completely different from today, and the filling was mainly salted bean paste or miso bean paste. This is because sugar was still a luxury item. The sweetness of the smooth bean paste we have today only became standard after domestic sugar became widely available in the 19th century. Its history is surprisingly short.

And this is the interesting part: Kashiwa Mochi is completely original to Japan. There is no culture of eating Kashiwa Mochi on Children's Day in China or Korea. It was something that the people of Edo started on their own.

In the simple act of wrapping mochi in a leaf, parents of the past were wrapping up a rather grand wish: 'May our family continue forever.'

Chapter 3: Chimaki is a wish to 'protect from disaster'

Before I looked into it, I thought, 'Chimaki is the starting point of Tango no Sekku, right?'
But in reality, it was a bit different. Tango no Sekku had long had the character of a 'festival to ward off evil spirits,' and the story of Chimaki was added later as a two-tiered structure. This was a bit surprising.

That story of Chimaki is the famous Qu Yuan legend.

Around 278 BC, Qu Yuan was a poet and politician in the state of Chu in China. He had a strong sense of justice and was loved by the people, but he was driven out of the country by a conspiracy and threw himself into the Miluo River on May 5th. People who missed him threw rice wrapped in leaves into the river so that 'fish would not eat his body'—this is said to be the prototype of Chimaki.

However, the meaning of Chimaki is not only the Qu Yuan legend.

The etymology of 'chimaki' is 'chimaki (wrapped in cogon grass)'. It comes from the fact that it was wrapped in the leaves of a plant called cogon grass (chigaya). Cogon grass has long been considered a 'sacred leaf that wards off evil spirits and epidemics.' Even today, there is a Shinto ritual called 'chinowa kuguri (passing through a cogon grass ring)' during the Nagoshi no Harae, and it is the same grass.

In other words, two meanings overlap in chimaki.

1. Qu Yuan legend: 'To raise a child with loyalty'

2. Cogon grass's warding off of evil: 'To protect children from disasters and illnesses'

Chimaki was a 'wrapping preparation' to wish that disasters would not approach children.

If kashiwa mochi is a 'wish for the family to continue,' then chimaki is a 'wish to protect from disaster.' The direction is different, but the root is the same—
'May the children grow up safely.'.

That took the form of wrapping mochi or rice in leaves.

Chapter 4: Kanto and Kansai, why is the food eaten different?

Here is one interesting statistic.

According to a survey by Weathernews, over 90% of people nationwide cited kashiwa mochi as something they eat on Children's Day. On the other hand, only 12% of people in the Kanto region cited chimaki. Even though it is the same May 5th, there is such a difference by region.

Moreover, even the image of the word 'chimaki' differs between the East and the West.

• Kanto: Chinese-style sticky rice (glutinous rice with ingredients)

• Kansai: White, long, thin, sweet Japanese confection

With the same word, what comes to mind is something completely different. I think this is quite an amazing story.

Why did it split so much? The reason is simple: the era it was transmitted and the location of power were different.

Chimaki was transmitted from China during the Nara period. The capital at the time was Nara/Kyoto. Therefore, it first took root in Western Japan. In the Muromachi period, the long-established Kyoto shop 'Kawabata Doki' presented chimaki to the Imperial Palace, and it became authoritative as aristocratic culture.

On the other hand, kashiwa mochi was born in Edo during the Edo period. That is why it spread in Kanto first. There is also a geographical factor that oak trees were difficult to grow in Kansai.

By the way, there are many regions that do not fit into this dichotomy. Beko mochi in Hokkaido and Aomori, sasa-maki in Yamagata and Niigata, aku-maki in Kagoshima and Miyazaki, oni-mochi in Okinawa, hoba-maki in Kiso, Nagano Prefecture—'nationwide common event food' is actually quite close to a fantasy. In each region, unique event food created from the local plants and history has grown.

Chapter 5: People of the past turned wishes into 'food'

Here, just for a moment, let's have a typical Zawa-4 style talk.

Modern parents make all sorts of preparations for their children. Educational insurance, lessons, disaster prevention kits, hazard maps, and managing the distance from social media.

But people in the past didn't have any of those tools.
In an era without insurance companies, supermarkets, or disaster supplies, how did they manage to 'do something for their children'?

One of the answers to that was kashiwa-mochi and chimaki.

Even if the forms are different, the functions might be the same.

• Kashiwa-mochi → Preparation for the family to continue (≒ 'preparation for the timeline' like educational insurance)

• Chimaki → Preparation to protect against disaster (≒ 'preparation for when things break' like disaster prevention kits)

Rice cakes wrapped in leaves, and insurance policies or emergency food. They look like completely different things when lined up.
But, 'placing something now for future uncertainty'—this is the essence of the act of preparation, and people in the pastentrusted it to food.

You don't eat the leaves, yet you go to the trouble of wrapping them. If you think about it logically, you don't need them.
But because they are there, a simple rice cake becomes a 'vessel of wishes'.

Thinking about it that way, the sweets we eat on Children's Day might not just be seasonal products, but 'edible preparations' thought up by people of the past.

Summary: It tastes a little better when you know the meaning.

This Children's Day, if you are eating kashiwa-mochi or chimaki, you might want to ask your family this:

'Do you know why we eat these?'

You don't need to explain all the difficult history.

• 🍡 Oak leaves hold a wish for the family to continue

• 🍡 Chimaki holds a wish to protect against disaster

• 🍡 People of the past wished for their children's happiness and put that into food

That alone is enough.

Culture isn't something that remains only in textbooks; it is passed on to the next generation by talking about it at the dinner table, saying, 'By the way, this has a meaning.'

The scent of the leaves and the sweetness of the bean paste are the same as always.
But when you eat them after knowing their meaning, they taste just a little bit better.

That might be the smallest gift you can give on Children's Day during Golden Week.

A word from Zawa4

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