Beyond Japanese Treats: What Do People Eat for New Year?

While we enjoy our favorite Japanese snacks and Japanese candies, we also like to satisfy our cravings for Japanese food with unique foods you can only get in Japan. Eating these foods during the holiday is perfect because dishes that come out only during the holiday season fit that bill perfectly. While you may be familiar with the unique Japanese Christmas food trend, or the special holiday drink that came out, do you know what traditional food Japanese people often eat during New Year's?

Osechi is a traditional meal that contains many different Japanese treats that represent various desires or wishes for the upcoming meal. Osechi comes in a special box similar to the popular bento box. This box is called a juubako. They are often stacked up before and after eating this meal. Let's take a look at some dishes that come in an osechi below!

This is an example of a handmade traditional osechi meal. As you can see, it contains many different flavors, textures, and looks all in one meal!

This Japanese treat is a Japanese bitter orange called daidai. This bitter orange is included in an osechi because it's name means "from generation to generation". It represents one's wishes or desires that are passed down to your children!

Red seabream, known as tai in Japanese, is a popular, extravagant dish found in high-quality osechi. This fish represents the desire for enriching days for the upcoming year. Many people hope to find this in their osechi as it provides hope that the upcoming year will be even more rewarding than the last!

Above, you can see the large boiled prawn. This is called ebi and it represents a desire for a long life. When looking at a prawn, Japanese people imagine a long beard and a bent back, which brings to mind old age and a long life.

As you can see, osechi has many, many dishes that can be included, so we can't explain every dish here without writing a novel! We hope this little insight into some of the dishes was interesting and helped you learn a little bit more about Japanese culture! We wish we could include some of these snacks into our Japan box, but sadly, it would go bad during transit! However, we are confident you will enjoy all the other Japanese candy in your Japanese snack box!

Let us know in the comments below which of these osechi dishes you'd love to try!

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