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Next: 1 to 3 Jan 2027

Oshogatsu and osechi

Japanese New Year, with osechi boxes and toso, a spiced sake of sansho, cinnamon and other herbs drunk to start the year.

Photo: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Spices for Oshogatsu and osechi

The New Year's meal is osechi, food packed in lacquer boxes, each item with a lucky meaning, from black beans to herring roe. The first drink is otoso, sweet sake in which a herbal packet (tososan) of sansho pepper, cinnamon bark, platycodon root and other ingredients has been steeped overnight. The custom comes from Chinese medicine of the Tang era and is a lasting example of spice in a ritual rather than a recipe. Wasabi and mustard are used with sashimi, and sansho and shichimi in soups.

The spices

CinnamonThe bark of the tososan packet.WasabiServed with sashimi.

Also part of it, and being written: Sansho (Pepper in the herbal sake.).

About this page

Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Osechi" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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