Japanese people eat 7 herbs porridge celebrates 7th January for the sound health of the year. Except for having porridge, they also have other unique customs.
How to Cook 7 Herb Porridge
Those 7 herbs are Japanese Persley (Seri), Sheperd Purse (Nazuna), Cottonweed (Gogyo), Chickweed (Hakobera), Lamium amplexicaule (ホトケノザ), Turnip (Suzuna), Japanese radish.
It is very difficult to search all of those herbs by yourself, but they are available at nearby spermaket.
Each Japanese region has different ingredients in Japan.
My family also put slice of Kagami-mochi which is also believed to be good luck charm of new year.
My 7 Herb Porridge
This is an original 7 herb porridge of my family.
Addition of red ccarrots make the porrige beautiful. How do you think?
Kagoshima’s Custom
In Kagoshima and its surrounding areas, when children become 7 years old, they go out into neighborhood and visit 7 houses and have 7 porridges in total on 7th January for good luck charm. I was very lucky to happen to see a girl and her mother who are visiting houses in my neigborhood. 🙂
