Okuizome - a celebration of life and food

-
Principle 10: Use and value diversity

Our youngest son, Sen, has been on breast milk for six months and has been pretty keen to explore other taste sensations - like the floor, seat harness, basically anything that he can reach. Kunie has been actively sharing her cultural heritage with our two boys, speaking to them in Japanese, preparing traditional meals and sharing some of the customs. Food is a cultural focus in Japan, much more so than in Australia, and the Okuizome ritual welcomes children to the joys of food.

Okuizome is a traditional Japanese ceremony that has been around for about 1000 years. It was once common for babies to die before reaching the 100th day milestone, in more recent times the ritual is held at around six months. Special dishes are prepared for the baby, with the hope that he / she will always have enough food in his life. The colour theme of the food and dishes is red, which brings luck in many Asian cultures. The food that is presented on the ceremonial tray usually includes:
  • Fish, commonly the celebratory 'tai' (Snapper), which should have its head and tail still attached symbolising the strengthening of the neck.
  • Beans, representing loyalty and diligence, since the Japanese word for beans, 'mame' is a homophone for these virtues.
  • Boiled Vegetables, usually seasonal and include some 'kombu' (kelp) whose Japanese name reminds native speakers of the word 'yorokobu' (to be glad).
  • Soup, in our case 'miso'
  • Rice, the celebratory sticky rice called 'sekihan'
  • and a Smooth Pebble, presented for the baby to bite, representing the growth of strong, healthy teeth.
While these dishes are all presented to Sen, he doesn't actually eat any of them, which seems a bit cruel. Instead we fed him some stewed cherry plums which we harvested from trees in the back yard.

We invited people of all ages to be a part of the celebration, people who we felt would be a part of his life. About half of the 35 guests were local, as well as some from the city and others from way out bush. We even had Sen's grandparents watching on from Hiroshima via skype.

Our interpretation of the tradition included the invitation for guests to bring a special dish of their own to contribute to the feast along with a story that could be shared with us all. Some people brought food that they grew themselves, others brought dishes from their homeland, food they enjoyed as a child, our next door neighbour brought her signature dish of sausage rolls that were snapped up before I got a taste.

Guests arrive for the Okuizome. The hand painted paper fish banner at the top of the photo is called a 'koi nobori' (carp wind sock) that is traditionally flown on 'tango no sekku' (boys' day). It was originally given to Kunie's grandfather by a neighbour on the birth of his son (Kunie's father), over 70 years ago.

Food laid out for the feast with the ceremonial Okuizome dishes in the foreground.

Sen's nana holds him while he laps up the attention of local guests

Kunie pretends to feed Sen the ceremonial food as part of the ritual while Kai investigates what else there is

Kai, who enjoyed his Okuizome nearly three years ago, feeds his little brother for the first time

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crazy paving with urbanite

-
Image
Principle 11: Use edges and value the marginal I collected a large pile of concrete which had been sitting out the front for a number of years. It had become habitat for snails mainly. Originally the concrete blocks were footpaths from around the original house, so they hadn't traveled far. This material is more commonly known as 'urbanite', and is used in some pretty creative ways . I've been thinking about creating a space for an outdoor kitchen for some time now, and figured that I really needed a paved area in between the shed and cellar to set it up. The urbanite seemed like the perfect answer, allowing me to clean up around the front and create a great space round the back. My mate Dylan suggested that I make up a form and mortar mix to set the concrete block pieces onto. Seemed like a good idea to me, so after thinking about it for a few months and with summer just about to start, I decided to get stuck into it. After clearing the space I set up a
Read more

The 'Super Fridge' (upright freezer conversion)

-
Image
Principle 12: Creatively use and respond to change I'm one for trying out different things, and I like to see what we can get away with before committing to something bigger and 'better'. Fridges and freezers are one of the biggest energy consumers in the household - usually behind heating / cooling and hot water systems. Our upright freezer to fridge conversion in action We've trialed a number of fridge systems here before settling on the upright freezer conversion. First we used an old 150lt bar fridge that used around 670Wh per day Then we bought a 150lt chest freezer (using around 466Wh per day) for preserving bulk food - with the idea of a possible conversion. Our bar fridge died two weeks later so we used ice from our freezer to create a 'ice box bar fridge' We then tried a smaller old Engel fridge (about 50lt) that I had in the Kombi that used about 420Wh per day. After not being entirely satisfied with any of the above I finally decided
Read more

Cool cupboard completed

-
Image
Principle 7: Design from patterns to details The cool cupboard project has been a very long one. While it demonstrates most of the permaculture design principles I thought that I'd focus on 'Design from Patterns to Details' because it really was the way in which the project evolved and was finally completed. The design was inspired by the cool cupboard that I saw at Melliodora, the home of David Holmgren and Su Dennett. David includes a section about the design of his cupboard in his eBook about the property. Since then I've seen other designs that use the same principles including a pantry in an old house near Sheparton that had a mesh covered hole in the floor and one that was covered up in the ceiling and 'Adelaide House' in Alice Spings which I visited in 2004 and wrote this short report on for my Permaculture Diploma: My cupboard is based more on David Holmgren's design, with a few differences. It draws air through the cellar (with a water tan
Read more