Do Japanese love rice cakes?

Do Japanese people love rice cakes? The answer is YES! But of course, some Japanese don’t like them.
There are many rice cake shops throughout Japan, and there are some limited rice cakes depends on the season in Japan. Furthermore, many Japanese sweets texture are imitated to rice cakes such as very chewy chocolate, some pancake contains rice cakes and more.
Anyway, rice cakes are called “Mochi” in Japanese. The chewy texture like rice cakes is translated “Mochi mochi” in Japanese.

Sakura Mochi

Sakura Mochi is a seasonal rice cake. Sakura means cherry blossoms, and Mochi is rice cake as I mentioned. In spring around April, there are full of cherry blossoms in Japan. It’s so amazing and beautiful. Japanese people have a party under the cherry blossoms. So, Sakura Mochi goes on the market around spring.
Sakura Mochi looks pink colored rice and covered with a leaf of cherry blossoms. The pink rice is made from a kind of rice flour, and the leaf is very thin and preserved in salt. The leaf is edible.

It’s filled with sweet red bean pastes. Many Japanese traditional sweets like rice cake are filled with red bean paste. Sakura Mochi is not so much sticky and chewy like rice cake. But it’s a little salty and the filling is very sweet so that it has salty and sweet both!

Nightingale Mochi

Have you ever seen a Japanese nightingale? It’s also called a bush warbler. It’s a very beautiful bird and the bird songs are amazing. It colored beautiful yellow green. They start singing the beginning days of spring in Japan.
Nightingale Mochi goes to the market from spring in Japan. It’s very chewy and beautiful light green. It looks like a pretty nightingale. It is also filled with sweet red pean pastes.

Summary

I shared Sakura mochi and Nightingale mochi here, and we have a rice cake wrapped in an oak leaf called Kashiwa mochi as well. Japanese people eat it for the Boy’s festival in May.
In winter we often eat rice cake in a hot sweet red bean soup. Also, we often eat rice cake during new year season. The most popular Mochi in Japan is Kinako Mochi! It’s a rice cake coated by sweet soybean powder. The soybean power is full of protein and so much delicious!! Let’s try it once!