Setsubun and Ehomaki Recipe!

Today is the day before spring begins according to the lunisolar calendar. On February 3rd, the Japanese celebrate Setsubun, celebrating the start of spring. Setsubun no Hi (節分の日), also known as the Bean-Throwing Festival, celebrates the start of a new year according to the lunar calendar. So several things are done to bring good luck to the coming year, as well as chase away the demons of the old year.

First, is the ritual of mamemaki (節分), which literally translates as bean-throwing, to drive away bad luck and demons (called oni). Usually someone in the family will dress up as a oni and people will stand at the doorway and throw soybeans at the door until the oni retreats. We had way too much fun throwing soybeans at Oni-Tiara, who in turn had way too much fun eating the soybeans.

So now that you've driven out the bad luck and oni (and in our case, attracted a begging pooch), you now eat some soybeans yourself to invite good luck in. Traditionally you eat as many soybeans as your age (Tiara should have stopped at seven beans) but I ended up snacking on them while I wrote this post, so I'm either extra lucky, or more probably, just fatter.

Another ritual is eating ehomaki, a makizuki sushi roll that is completely uncut, and contains 7 different ingredients for good luck. You're supposed to eat it in complete silence while facing a special auspicious direction that changes every year, for instance 2014 the lucky direction is east-northeast.

Now, even if you don't want to eat a whole sushi roll in complete silence, ehomaki are very tasty! They are actually just uncut futomaki, or fat sushi rolls, but it is kinda fun to eat them uncut like a giant sushi burrito. Maki-san at JustHungry has some great ideas for nontraditional ehomaki fillings on this page, as well as the most traditional fillings.

Kaki Kohaku Namasu (柿 紅白なます)

Kohaku Namasu (紅白なます) is a traditional celebration food in Japanese culture, most prominent around the New Years festivities. Usually it is made with julienned carrots and daikon radish that is soaked in a rice vinegar mixture. Red and white (kohaku) are considered lucky colors together, and even though this dish is actually orange and white, it's close enough.

And while New Year's is still a couple months away, I can't help but get wrapped up in the excitement before Thanksgiving. This is both a party dish and a quintessential fall dish, thanks to the persimmon, so I could see it at our table this Thanksgiving.

I decided to make this version because I still have quite the haul of fuyu kaki leftover despite my bundt cake. The persimmon takes place of the carrot, and substitutes well since both have a nice sweetness that plays off the bitter daikon and salty vinegar dressing. Some recipes include citrus juice, to play up the acidity.

Some people like to serve kohaku namasu immediately, other suggest letting it settle in the fridge for several hours or overnight to let the daikon and vinegar mellow.

Took forever, still huge pieces!

Every recipe also varies on the ratio of white to orange, so feel free to have more or less than I suggest based on your fancy. I kept eating the fresh persimmon and the freshly salted daikon before they ever made it into the vinegar mix!

When making this, I realized I am terrible at cutting things. Julienning the daikon and persimmon took forever, and I wasted a lot of the persimmon just because I didn't know how to properly make a squat round shape into matchsticks. Even then, the julienne pieces ended up being like 1/4" big. Oh well, maybe it's time to invest in a mandoline.