Japanese festivals
Japan. It is considered by most Japanese to be one of the most important annual festivals and
has been celebrated for centuries with its own unique customs.
Traditional food
Japanese people eat a special selection of dishes during the New Year celebration called
osechi-ryri ( or ?), typically shortened to osechi. This consists of boiled seaweed (,
kombu?), fish cakes (, kamaboko?), mashed sweet potato with chestnut (, kurikinton?),
simmered burdock root (, kinpira gobo?), and sweetened black soybeans (, kuromame?).
Many of these dishes are sweet, sour, or dried, so they can keep without refrigeration--the
culinary traditions date to a time before households had refrigerators, when most stores closed
for the holidays. There are many variations of osechi, and some foods eaten in one region are
not eaten in other places (or are even banned) on New Year's Day. Another popular dish is
ozni (?), a soup with omochi (
annaabi.ee 
