, or ''o-toso'', is

spice In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

d medicinal

sake Sake, , or saki, also referred to as Japanese rice wine, is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indeed any East Asi ...

traditionally drunk during

Japanese New Year The is an annual festival that takes place in Japan. Since 1873, the official Japanese New Year has been celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar, on January 1 of each year, . Prior to 1872, traditional events of the Japanese New Year wer ...

celebrations. ''Toso'' is also known historically in China.

Culture

Toso is drunk to flush away the previous year's maladies and to aspire to lead a long life. For generations it has been said that "if one person drinks this his family will not fall ill; if the whole family does no-one in the village will fall ill" and has been a staple part of New Year's

osechi (御節料理, お節料理 or おせち) are traditional Japanese New Year foods. are easily recognizable by their special boxes called '' jūbako'' (重箱), which resemble '' bentō'' boxes. Like ''bentō'' boxes, ''jūbako'' are often ke ...

cuisine in Japan. Toso is written using two

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

: 蘇 representing evil spirits and 屠 meaning to slaughter. Toso is made by combining several medicinal herbs to form , a spicy mixture, which is then soaked in sake or

mirin is a type of rice wine and a common ingredient in Japanese cuisine, Japanese cooking. It is similar to sake but with a lower alcohol (drug), alcohol content and higher sugar content. The sugar content is a complex carbohydrate that forms natur ...

. If made with

, essentially a sweet sake, it is suitable for drinking, but using fermented mirin seasoning would not be appropriate as it is too salty. Three sizes of cup, called (see picture), are used starting with the smallest and passed round with each family member or guest taking a sip. Drinking rituals differ by region, but in formal situations would proceed from youngest to eldest. This tradition originated in China in hope for children to grow faster whereas their elders to age slower. However, in Japan, around the beginning of the

Meiji Meiji, the romanization of the Japanese characters 明治, may refer to: Japanese history * Emperor Meiji, Emperor of Japan between 1867 and 1912 ** Meiji era, the name given to that period in Japanese history *** Meiji Restoration, the revolution ...

Shōwa Shōwa most commonly refers to: * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa ** Shōwa era (昭和), the era of Hirohito from 1926 to 1989 * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufactu ...

periods, custom changed and the head of the household usually takes the first drink. The tradition of drinking toso at the New Year began in the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

in China and was adopted by Japanese aristocrats during the

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

. The first cup drunk would be made with tososan and the second and third cups with different varieties called ''byakusan'' and ''toshōsan''. The drinking ceremony finally passed to the general public and doctors would give out tososan. Even today some chemists shops have retained the custom and give tososan away as a free gift at the end of the year. The custom is now mainly limited to

Kansai The or the lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropoli ...

and west Japan; in other regions celebratory ''o-toso'' at New Year is often plain sake without tososan.

Ingredients

The recipe is said to have originated as a prescription of the famous Chinese physician

Zhang Zhongjing Zhang Zhongjing (; 150–219), formal name Zhang Ji (), was a Chinese pharmacologist, physician, inventor, and writer of the Eastern Han dynasty and one of the most eminent Chinese physicians during the later years of the Han dynasty. He estab ...

during the

Eastern Han The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

period. Ingredients have changed somewhat over time; some of the original Chinese ones were deemed at one point or another to be too potent for casual consumption. Nowadays it is typically made from Japanese pepper, asiasari radix,

apiaceae Apiaceae () or Umbelliferae is a family of mostly aromatic flowering plants named after the type genus ''Apium,'' and commonly known as the celery, carrot, or parsley family, or simply as umbellifers. It is the 16th-largest family of flowering p ...

cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...

, dried

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

atractylodes ''Atractylodes'' is a genus of Asian flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. Species ''Atractylodes'' is native to eastern Asia. * '' Atractylodes amurensis'' – Korea, Amur * '' Atractylodes carlinoides'' – Hubei * '' Atractylodes japoni ...

Japonica,

Chinese bellflower ''Platycodon grandiflorus'' (from Ancient Greek "wide" and "bell") is a species of herbaceous flowering perennial plant of the family Campanulaceae, and the only member of the genus ''Platycodon''. It is native to East Asia (China, Korea, Japa ...

and

rhubarb Rhubarb is the fleshy, edible stalks ( petioles) of species and hybrids (culinary rhubarb) of ''Rheum'' in the family Polygonaceae, which are cooked and used for food. The plant is a herbaceous perennial that grows from short, thick rhizomes. ...

, amongst others.

Sources

* Primarily translated from the Japanese Wikipedia article as of 6 January 2007.

External links

* {{Japanese food and drink Japanese cuisine terms Japanese New Year foods Sake Traditional Japanese medicine

Culture

Ingredients

Sources

See also

External links