hallvord.com / life / shoogatsu: food

Most of the food served for this meal has specific symbolic significance. Below is a list of the food with its Japanese name as well as the symbolic meaning where I remember it.

薩摩芋: satsumaimo, mashed sweet potato
酒: sake, the famous rice wine
菊花蕪　（大根）: daikon, japanese radish. "Chrysantemum"-cut (kikukabu).
くわい: kowai - a sort of potato. For growth
数の子、鯛の卵: various types of fish roe. For fertility
魚: sakana - fish
豆: mame - black, sweet beans.
煮しめ: nishime - soup.
田作り: tatsukuri. Small fishes. For good harvest.

Small note: if your web browser has excellent DOM and CSS support, you can point at the food and see description in a tooltip. It works with Opera, at the time of writing it does not work with IE or FireFox.