Tradition of Onigiri, Japanese rice ball

Have you ever had Onigiri? 



You can get it at grocery stores and convenience stores in Japan. 

It’s made of boiled rice with some ingredients like fish flakes, salted pram inside, and wrapped with seaweed. 

Generally, its shape is triangular, but it’s called a rice ball in English.


Onigiri’s “O” is a prefix for politeness, and “Nigiri” means grasping.

That’s because people make Onigiri with their hands and mold each shape, but Onigiri at stores is made by machines.



It is said that people began to eat Onigiri over a thousand years ago in the Heian period.

It’s said that Omusubi, another name of Onigiri, were served as offerings to Gods at Shrines.

 Travelers used to bring dried sticky rice balls as portable food, and this habit became more common for soldiers on battlefields in the Middle Ages.

So we usually bring Onigiri for lunch when we have picnics or go hiking still now.


People of olden days were managing to preserve food. They tried to dry, bake or mix salt with various ingredients. 

Onigiri was the result of experiments by ancestors.


NHK,Japan Broadcasting Corporation had introduced various Onigiri from each region on their program The excavation of Onigiri on Japanese table in 2001.


For example, people like to bake Onigiri with butter in Hokkaido because the products made from milk are usually cheap there.  

In some parts of the Kanto region, people like to make Onigiri mixed with rice and salted cherry blossom.

There are some kinds of Onigiri wrapped with leaves of evergreen for both preservation and flavor.

Some people in Kyushu or Okinawa like to make Onigiri with steamed flavored sticky rice, we can find these kinds of traditional food in China or South East Asia.


Though Onigiri is traditional Japanese food, it is familiar as fast food.

Onigiri is one of the top sales products in the convenience store industry in Japan.

Especially Onigiri with tuna flakes mixed with mayonnaise is popular among all generations.

But this type of Onigiri isn’t traditional, it was on sale for the first time in 1974 by Seven-Eleven Japan Co.Ltd.


It is very interesting for me to learn about the history of cuisine.

This story must make Onigiri tasty. 


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