The first day of the year !

by Kazu

This is the traditional set of Japanese cuisine for the beginning of the year. Different from current situation, almost no shop opened at the end and the beginning of the year. On top of that, to give the house wives a enough rest at the time, every household made their own year-end meal set after cleaning up their houses.  

No house chores annoyed the housewives at the time. The top left is "Umani", boiled lotus root, carrot, yam, pieces of konjak called devil's tongue, string beans and fish cakes. The top right is
fried burdock, carrot and lotus root,
crab cake, boiled black beans and pickled radish and carrot.
Above are sea eel cake, herring roe, boiled small fish and sweet chestnut.  

This soup is made of bonito broth and contains chicken meat, rice cake, fish cake and sliced leek.
Before having breakfast on January first, the family members do greeting each other and eat this soup called "zouni"which means mix soup.
The Belgian chocolate followed the break fast this year.

Have a nice weekend !