Before we dive in – let me take a moment to tell you what onigiri is.
In many countries, when we want something to eat while we’re out of the house we will simply prepare or buy a sandwich. However, in Japan, there’s another food which fills the function of a sandwich – and that’s onigiri.
The first time I came across onigiri was when I stayed in the Japanese countryside. During my trip, a kind elderly woman reached out to me and asked me if I could help her make onigiri for the men going to cut down bamboos in a nearby grove the next morning. We met the next day before dawn at an exterior kitchen in the village. She arrived with a big pot of cooked rice (when did she cook it?! It was so early…) and taught me how to make the onigiri:
“We should wet our hands and take a medium-size portion of rice, then start to tighten it in our hands in a triangular shape. When we finish, we wrap it with a shiso leaf or a sheet of nori seaweed. The most important thing is to tighten the rice well, otherwise, the onigiri will fall apart.”
The woman asked me if we make onigiri in my country. I told her that we don’t and usually in these cases we would just eat a sandwich, which really surprised her: “A sandwich?! Aren’t you still hungry afterwards?”. Apparently, in Japan a sandwich is definitely not enough as an on-the-go meal during a working day.
That morning we prepared the onigiri between 5:30 AM and 6:30 AM, ready for the men to collect them at 7 AM before they went to the bamboo grove. They showed so much gratitude when they came to pick up the food which really made me feel it was well worth waking up at 4:20 in the morning.
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