Photo : Foodporn Daily
A few days ago, on february 3rd, Japanese people were celebrating Setsubun. This celebration signals the beginning of Spring. That may be quite hard to believe while we are living the cold wave in all Europe.
In Japan Setsubun marks the changing from one season to another. But now only the first day of Spring is still celebrated.
The best know tradition for Setsubun is « mame-maki » : Japanese people throw soya seeds out of their house while saying « Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! » literally« Demons out! Luck in! ». The purpose is to throw demons and ghosts out of the house and let the hapiness and lucky get in.
Another funny tradition is to eat an entire maki roll in once without cutting it. This maki has to contain 7 different ingredients (lucky number in Japan). It is called ehomaki and has to be eaten in the direction of eho : the direction of luck! This brings luck all year long.