How do sumo wrestlers get so fat?
Learning how to make Japanese stew and rice cakes with the big boys.

I was part of Omochitsuki – a traditional Japanese festival where cooked rice is pounded with large wooden mallets until it becomes mochi, a much-loved Japanese sweet.

A hollowed segment of tree trunk is used, and is extremely heavy. The convenient round bowl-shape holds up to the hard wood mallets used to smash the rice.

The resulting mochi was then passed on to a group of parents who dusted it in kinako – soybean flour.

In Japan, a lot of events have their origins in times when most villager’s diets consisted of very simple food. A long time ago, when rice was used as a currency, most Japanese only got to eat rice on special occasions. A condensed rice treat then, would have more calories, and be even more special.

And begin making chankonabe – a famous Japanese stew commonly eaten in vast quantities by sumo wrestlers in order to gain weight.

And then left to simmer in a vat of chicken (quartered, skin left on), tofu and vegetables (mushrooms, daikon, bok choy).
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