And even though there are some staples on the menu throughout the nation, what goes into those staples also varies!
osechi
Join us as we take a look at some of the most popular Japanese New Year traditions and reveal the spiritual symbolism and superstitions behind them.
It’s almost like the New Year already wanted to give him the cold shoulder…or rather, a cold fish cake.
Questions explore the ongoing impact of the pandemic on family traditions and what people plan to spend the most money on for celebrations.
The ingredients of this Frappuccino, including kelp, don’t just taste great, traditional Japanese culture says they’ll give you blessings for the year to come.
Pounded rice may be delicious, but it can be incredibly risky—especially in our current circumstances.
Conveyor belt sushi chain Kura Sushi single-sizes osechi, creates new desserts to keep us company.
Two of the few osechi dishes almost everyone likes team up for a very special, very Japanese flavor that promises good luck in the new year.
After making “Kentucky Fried Christmas” a thing, KFC continues to bring out New Year’s boxes to compete with traditional osechi cuisine
Pikachu is ready to help you ring in the new year with 24 auspicious dishes served inside a giant Poké Ball!
The tiny details and awesome, original extras take these three-tiered meals out of the traditional world and to a galaxy far, far away.
At the beginning of October, most of us outside Japan are thinking about Halloween and Christmas. But inside Japan, something different is cooking. Now is the time that Japanese retailers start taking orders for osechi, a New Year’s bento box full of traditional and tasty Japanese foods.
But this year, one Japanese retailer has decided to put a spin-jump on things. They’re offering a Super Mario Bros.-themed osechi bento box to take your New Year’s Day dinner to a new level and impress all your family and friends. What’s inside this Bowser-sized box of goodies? Read on to find out!
New Year’s in Japan is usually celebrated with family huddled under the kotatsu while munching on mikans, and sharing a dinner of traditional food, called osechi. Each component of the meal retains an auspicious meaning, granting the eater with good fortune, health, or fertility, among other things, during the coming year.
However, in recent years, an increasingly large population of Japan’s youth have chosen to forgo eating osechi. There are many reasons osechi has been disappearing from Japanese homes during New Year’s, but these changing tastes have given rise to a smorgasbord of strange, unique, and, frankly, comparatively tastier pre-made osechi meals. From cooked isopods to a box full of meat, let’s take a closer look at six modern day osechi.