Killer Food

Last Friday afternoon myself and Cian attended an event in the university organized by students (Mammy was allegedly "busy with work" but more likely too busy drinking coffee and kibbitzing in the staffroom). We were there to make mochi, the traditional food served in Japan to mark the new year. Mochi is essentially boiled rice placed in a wooden mortar and then repeatedly pounded with a pestle until it becomes a sticky, glutinous mass. It is then divided into smaller portions and eaten with different savories such as anko, whipped cream, kinako (roasted and ground soy flour), and eh, natto. Although I'm not much of a fan both Cian and Sanae quite like it.
Mochi also kills you.
Not in the long drawn-out way cholesterol eventually kills you, but in an immediate eat-it-and-you-die way. It sticks in the throat, blocking your airway and quickly asphyxiating you.
This past New Year alone saw 9 people choke to death after eating mochi while another 13 were in a 'serious' condition (medical speak for "Christ, but are they ever f***ed") in hospital.
And yet there we were, young and old, in the university, a national university no less, happily making a food that kills more people in Japan each year than guns do. Cian calls it a 'lethal weapon' and is planning on adding it to the armaments on the aircraft carrier he got for Christmas.