Nana Kusa or The Seven Herbs of Spring (Patreon)

It's January 7th, so I thought I'd talk about nanakusa/七草 or the Seven Herbs of Spring. This day is also called Jinjitsu/人日 or Human Day or Day of Humankind and is thought of as a day no harm can come to people. Which, I don't know, sounds like a dare to me.

But as far as the custom of eating these seven special herbs/vegetables on January 7th, well, it's centuries old and believed to cleanse your body, promote both health in the coming year, and longevity overall. Also get rid of evil.

I was always told it was a way to rest your stomach after so much overindulgence during Oshogatsu/the first few days of the New Year. As far as eating goes, the New Year's holidays are the pinnacle of dinning debauchery in Japan, I think.

First you have your osechi ryōri, then you have all the mochi (metric tons of it, if you're lucky) that is eaten in a bunch of fun and different ways, there's ozōni soup, and then all kinds of special foods people only splurge on once a year: crab, huge shrimp, lobster, and I even have a relative who always has caviar on hand for the New Year. It's just a time to eat delicious food and go ahead and eat a lot of it, too.

Where I live people like to give foods to each other at the end of the previous year, so on top of what you buy, you'll end up with cases of canned tuna, packages of ham, chashu pork, mikan,  fishcakes, more mochi, just about anything.

Families are getting together so snacks are also to be had. The joke is that you get tired of osechi by day two (or three), so all the pizza delivery places and take out sushi joints take advantage of this with coupons and fancy ads.

By the 7th, you're a little tired of eating in general. So why not have some seven spring herbs okayu porridge?

While making nanakusa okayu (nanakusa gayu) is still observed today, it's not super popular. But you can find packages of dried nanakusa or if you're lucky fresh ones sold in the days before and on the 7th.

The way to eat this symbolic Longevity Soup is to mix it in with rice and extra water to make okayu (rice porridge).

Some might be hard to find, but the seven herbs are:

1. Seri (water dropwort or Japanese parsley) = which evidently looks a lot like water hemlock <- poisonous!

2. Nazuna (Shepherd's purse)

3. Gogyo (Cudweed)

4. Hakobera (Chickweed)

5. Hotokenoza (Henbit) = which means the Buddha's seat

6. Suzuna or kabu (turnip)

7. Suzushiro or daikon (radish)

And here's what they look like.

Here's a simple video of someone making the nanakusa kayu.

Then I found this video that for some reason is slightly disturbing to me. But it shows the tradition as it used to be done.

On the night of the sixth you tap your knife, upside down seven times. Then you line up all your utensils, seven of them next to your cutting board. When it's time to make the nanakusa gayu, you sing a special song and chop 49 times.

And the through the magic of time zones, I'll be posting this on January 8th Japan time, which means I'll have already prepared and eaten my nanakusa gayu. And here's what it looked like.

Ha! Here I am the next day. I totally didn't take a photo. What kind of person am I even? It did look a lot like the top image. I promise.

Okay, instead of food, I'll leave you then with a scan of my nengajo New Year's card I made this year. Still sending you all Happy New Years!

XOXO,

t

ETA: I forgot to add a photo of how it's usually sold around these parts. Last year I asked Richard a few days before the 7th if he wanted to do it and he said no. At that time there were a bunch being sold still. Then the day of, we were out and he was into it, but the supermarket were already sold out. Seems he didn't understand what I was talking about that first time I asked.This year we yoinked a package early. Plus I added a bunch of extra daikon I had. Look at that tiny daikon in there.