Author: Ellen Freeman / Source: Atlas Obscura
On a sweltering morning in August, three generations of the Tasaki family walk up the hill to the family grave. There, five generations of Tasakis have been laid to rest; they look out over the rice terraces in Takachiho, a rural mountain town in southern Japan.
Toshiko, wearing a bonnet that shades her face from the relentless sun, sweeps around the grave with a twig broom while her son, Tomonori, refills white porcelain cups with offerings of water and sake. His wife, Tomoko, lifts three-year-old Hibito up to arrange fresh flowers in bamboo-shaped plastic vases. A curl of incense smoke rises as Toshiko brings her hands together in prayer. It’s silent except for the drone of cicadas.Cleaning the grave is the first ritual of Obon, a Japanese summer festival when ancestral spirits are welcomed back home for a three-day family reunion in the world of the living. During Obon, they’re honored with offerings of favorite foods, bonfires, and lively dances, before being led back to the land of the dead on a river of floating lanterns.
Like any family reunion, there’s cooking to be done after the cleaning. “A lot of Obon foods food are for display rather than consumption,” says Elizabeth Andoh, author of the cookbooks Kansha and Washoku, who was born and raised in New York but has made her home in Japan since the 1960s. One of those food offerings is mizunoko. Toshiko helps Hibito scoop the mixture of diced eggplant and uncooked white rice onto a persimmon leaf, which they lay on the family tomb and in front of the mossy Buddhist statues, called ojizousama, that dot the family farmland. “It’s like a bento for when our ancestors go back to heaven, to ensure that they get there,” explains Tomoko.
In other parts of Japan, mizunoko might be served on a lotus or taro leaf, with chopped cucumbers mixed in.
While Obon is celebrated all over Japan, the flavors therein vary from family to family and region to region. In Shikoku, people press stripes of sushi ingredients into a box, not unlike a layer cake. Called hakozushi, it’s commonly served at summer family gatherings. Bondara, stewed and dried codfish, is a go-to in Kyushu since dried foods keep better in the heat. Buddhist supply shops offer customized sets of Obon altar decorations, such as bamboo fronds or dried Chinese lantern plants, depending on local traditions.
In nearby Saga prefecture, where Tomoko grew up, the cucumbers and eggplants take on another form. Skewer each of them with four bamboo legs, and add tails made out of cornsilk, and these typical summer vegetables become shouryouma, or “spirit horses.” The cucumber horse is long and sleek, symbolizing ancestors’ swift journeys home to their families. The eggplant cow, plump and sturdy, embodies ancestors’ leisurely return trip, a load of souvenirs with them in tow.
While this long-standing tradition is practiced in many parts of Japan, younger generations have been riffing on it in new ways, carving their summer vegetables into elaborate creations and posting them online. For some people, shouryouma represents a special way to pay tribute to their loved ones.
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