LIHUE — “What? I missed Christmas?” said Jessika Cristobal of the Salty Wahine Gourmet Hawaiian Salts. “I’m going to be a Christmas Tree . These are four different headbands put together as one, and I spent almost all of last night getting the present ready for my daughter Liliana. I’m going to have a different outfit for New Year’s.”
Cristobal was just one of the vendors looking ahead to New Year’s that falls a week following Christmas. This means that Saturday was the final big shopping day before Christmas at the Grove Farm Market, and next Saturday will be the final big shopping weekend before New Year celebrations. Grove Farm made their kadomatsu for the employees on Friday, taking advantage of the day-long project to sample the new box lunch from Daddy-Os.
“That’s right,” Duarte said. “There’s no one at the market who has kadomatsu available for the shoppers. Perhaps, for next year, there will be a group willing to sell kadomatsu as a fundraiser. Almost everyone needs good luck.”
Kadomatsu is a traditional Japanese New Year decoration that translates to “gate pine.” It arrived in Hawaii when the first Japanese were brought to Hawaii to labor in the plantations. Kadomatsu, which is considered the home of gods of good fortune, were placed at the home’s main entry to attract the gods and bring good fortune to the home. Kadomatsu were placed at the entry a few days before New Year’s, and kept on display for about a week following New Year’s.
The Pau Hana Market that meets on Mondays from 3 p.m. at the Kukui Grove south parking lot (across from Costco) is scheduled to have a limited supply of freshly-made kadomatsu by Olu Road Nursery and Lorena Silva.
“It’s hard work,” Silva said. “It might appear to be easy, but just try and make ‘em. It’s not easy.”
Other items being sought for New Year’s include a variety of vegetables used to prepare traditional Japanese New Year’s foods such as ozoni, namasu, nishime, and others.
“The mizuna is still growing,” said Hannah Huang at The Grove Farm Market. “We’ll have mizuna next Saturday along with citrus with leaves, carrots, cucumber, and more.”
Mizuna is a variety of mustard that is used to prepare the New Year’s ozoni soup. The citrus with leaves symbolize good luck and is almost always top of the kazane mochi arrangement.
The only thing in short supply is fresh mochi as the churches are taking fewer and fewer orders each year because their memberships are aging, and there are no younger people willing to make the rice cakes using sweet rice.
Families that used to collect together and produce mochi are also disappearing as members die and the younger generations don’t want to continue the tradition.
“For New Year’s, we eat, drink, and celebrate a lot,” said Belle of Meephol Farms.
