Setsubun - Bean-throwing festival

Today is Setsubun, the day before Risshun or the first day of spring. Japanese people have a bean-throwing festival at home, shrines, and temples. We throw roasted soybeans, shouting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!” to drive away evil spirits and bring in good luck. Beans for Setsubun are often sold in packages with oni or evil spirit printed. There are even packages with a mask of oni. The bean-throwing festival is a lot of fun for children. When I was little, we threw also in-shell peanuts in my family. Though soy beans became dirty and uneatable after they were thrown (so we ate other beans), but in-shell peanuts were still eatable. In some regions in Japan, they throw peanuts at home instead of soy beans for this practical reason.

I bought a pack of beans from Kyoto. According to the bag, a prayer was made in Nison-in Temple for these beans. But it is not so important for me because I just like the taste of good soybeans. I buy the same product every year.

According to the tradition, we eat as many beans as our age after throwing beans. I didn’t throw beans and ate them without counting. They were not only good but also nutritious. Unfortunately, roasted soybeans are only available at stores only at this time of the year. I hope I can get some more at a discount price tomorrow.

In addition to bean throwing, we have another tradition for Setsubun in Enshu or western part of Shizuoka Prefecture. In Japan, some ages are considered unlucky and called yakudoshi. They are 25, 42, and 61 for men, and 19, 33, and 37 for women. In Enshu, people in these ages used to put sweets called natamochi on crossroads and let children pick them up and eat them. In this way, they drove away bad luck. Though I grew up here, I had never heard of it before. When I walked around in the basement of Entetsu Department Store, I saw natamochi in Mataichian. It is a popular Japanese confectionary store in Iwata, a town to the east of Hamamatsu. There I heard about natamochi. As they looked delicious, I bought one of them.

The main ingredients are glutinous rice and adzuki beans, and the surface was coated with roasted soybean flour. According to the shop, the original natamochi doesn’t have any filling. The outside of it was so elastic that it was difficult to cut with a little Japanese-style fork. As it looked, it was delicious indeed!