Household Gods

A little something from a conversation I had with two people at a local cafe about two weeks ago....

I don't know how we reached the topic of traditional customs which have seemed to vanish but we got there nonetheless.  I was at Crescendo, a local cafe, for dinner.  Somewhere along the line the owner, a customer and I were engaged in a discussion about things which people used to do in Japan.  One part of that conversation was about household gods.

Nakazawa-san, the owner, recounted how her family would set out offerings of mochi, cakes of pounded sweet rice, to household gods around New Year's.  There were probably more than a handful.  The kitchen, the entrance, and certain rooms were on the list.  The mochi was freshly made so inevitably it became moldy.

That moldy mochi did not go to waste.  The practice of "saikyo yaki"(sic), building of a community bonfire to burn New Year's decorations, may still be carried on but mochi is not on the list of things which are tossed into the fire.  So, back in those days it had to be eaten.  The mochi was cut, washed, and scrubbed clean of mold.  I presume it may have found its way into some variety of dishes. All said, it may have still smelled (and tasted) a bit moldy but it wasn't going to be thrown out.  Simply put, it was mochi, it had been offered to the household gods, and throwing it out was out of the question.  Such waste could not even be thought of.

I suppose this lost tradition could be categorized in two ways: old rural homes just have that aura of having household gods (whilst modern ones don't) and, tongue in cheek, moldy mochi, even if it had been offered to the household gods, wasn't a terribly popular dish....