Free choice II: Onigiri time!

Having onigiri on hanami time! That one was made by our skilled friend, Sara.

Onigiri (or omusubi, the other name for the same thing), the little sticky rice ball has really become popular outside of Japan, in large part it seems due to its iconic status spread by anime and manga. It is very popular for carry-along lunches and you can easily get it at conveniences shops. Besides that, this particular food can also be part of a meal.

From my research about making onigiri, it must be made with sticky, short- or medium-grain rice. Long grain type rice just will not stick together sufficiently. So, depending on what type of rice used, you cannot have success enough. Concern about the salt is important to flavor the onigiri - either on the outside, with a salty filling inside, or salty sprinkles.



Writings dating back as far as the 1600s evidence that many samurai stored rice balls wrapped in bamboo leaves as a quick lunchtime meal at war, but the origins of onigiri are much earlier. Before the use of chopsticks became widespread in the Nara period, rice was often rolled into a small ball so that it could be easily picked up.



Making a traditional onigiri.


This is what arrived in a natural wrapping of bamboo sheath.

From the Kamakura period to the early Edo period, onigiri was used as a quick meal. This made sense as cooks simply had to think about making enough onigiri and did not have to concern themselves with serving. These onigiri were simply a ball of rice flavored with salt. Nori, the seaweeds leaves, did not became widely available until the Meiji period when farming of nori and making them into a sheet became widespread. Then, having onigiri is also a continuity of history, even though it had changed its shape and fillings.

Wabi-sabi in everyday balance

It seems that in every facet of life, the Japanese devote themselves to bringing about that sense of peace and harmony, of warmth and comfort, which they feel to be an essential part of beauty and balance. The intense feeling of texture, colour, form and space is intended to satisfy the spectator’s need for emotional assurance and calm. Appreciation of the such subtleties lead us to the enjoyment and understanding of japanese culture in general, what I believe is relevant as anthropologists and of its arts which in particular, brings very interesting quotes for me as a graphic design student.

Japanese art is often focussed on nuances of emotion, and works tend to be so charged with tension that altering the position of any part would drastically change the overall effect. Based on aesthetic conception, from the roots of zen-budhism, the appreciation of wabi-sabi remains the beauty of invisible, impermanent and incomplete.



Wabi connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, and can be applied to both natural and human-made objects, imperfect quality or understated elegance. Sabi is imperfect reliability, beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs. In this sense, wabi-sabi it is an understated beauty that exists in the modest, rustic, imperfect, or even decayed, an aesthetic sensibility that finds a melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things. Wabi-sabi demotes the role of the intellect and promotes an intuitive feel for life where relationships between people and their environments should be harmonious.



Stepping-stones, for example, slow the visitor’s pace. In a temple interior, a feeling of calm is generated by the asymmetry of the space and the warm hues and textures of the surfaces; the essence of the potting processes with quirks and accidents such as finger prints remark uniqueness; the sumi-e prints, which follows the mood of its brush strokes enhance the natureless. The perception of the inter-relationship of human being and objects which permeates japanese life, and which causes their “worship of the imperfect”. Indeed, there is no nervousness about symmetry or glossy surfaces; actually there is a relaxed sophistication often lacking in the arts of the ruling classes.