🍲 Bouri (Simmered Japanese taro)

Prince Morinaga, the son of Emperor Go-Daigo and also known as Ootonomiya, was an early participant in the movement to overthrow the Kamakura shogunate.When Emperor Go-Daigo was exiled to Oki Island after the "Genkō no Hen" incident in 1331, Ootonomiya, in order to evade pursuit by the shogunate, entered Kumano disguised as a yamabushi (mountain ascetic). This event is known as the Ootonomiya's Kumano Descent. As he passed through the city of Tanabe, Ooto Village, Ayukawa Ogawa district in the present-day, the villagers were engaged in mochitsuki (mochi-pounding) for New Year's. The hungry group requested mochi from the villagers, but there was a strict prohibition against providing any assistance or convenience to yamabushi, and none of the villagers gave them mochi. However, it was later discovered that the group included Prince Morinaga. The villagers apologized for their rudeness, and as an act of atonement, they stopped making mochi for 600 years during New Year's and began eating "bouri", a dish made by boiling the mother tuber of Satoimo(=Japanese taro). In 1935, during the 600th memorial service for Prince Morinaga held at Daikaku-ji Temple in Kyoto, villagers from Oto attended and offered 600 mochi as a form of atonement for the past rudeness. Although mochi-making resumed during New Year's after that, the tradition of eating "bouri" on New Year's is still observed in some places today.