自然薬膳ドットコム株式会社

ある海外の友人から「鏡開きって何？？」と質問されました。

どこで、調べてきたのかは不明ですが・・・・

“Kagami Biraki” is the event of eating “Kagami Mochi” at the end of the New Year.

“Kagami Mochi” is two-round piled up rice cakes.

It’s a Japanese tradition to decorate “Kagami Mochi” in our house in the new year.

We welcome the gods to stay in our house during the new year.

We offer “Kagami Mochi” to the god.

It is believed that the god stays in the “Kagami Mochi” during the new year.

At the end of the new year, we eat the “Kagami Mochi”, which is believed to have the god’s

spirit exists to wish good health and happiness of the family.

“Kagami Mochi” is big and hard so we need to cut it into small pieces before eating.

We call this event, the way of cutting and eating, “Kagami Biraki”.

We break “Kagami Mochi” into small pieces by hitting with a wooden hammer.

We say “waru” in Japanese to say “break” but “waru” is also a direful word.

Therefore, it became to say “open” instead of “break” for believing in good fortune.

However, for samurai, cutting mochi using a knife made them remind of harakiri (a form of ritual suicide).

They avoided using a knife to cut “Kagami Mochi”, instead of using it, they used a wooden hammer.

と、まあこのような説明をしました。

友人が理解できたかどうかはわかりません（笑）

そもそも友人の国では餅を食べる習慣がありませんから・・・・・