Onigiri

Onigiri is a Japanese rice ball, usually shaped into a triangle or cylinder and often wrapped in nori seaweed, with a salty or sour filling. It is one of Japan's most common portable foods and has spread to restaurants worldwide.

History

Carbonized rice lumps that look like rice balls were excavated from the Sugitani Chanobatake ruins in Ishikawa Prefecture, dating to the Yayoi period, and were once described as the oldest onigiri. Later research suggests they were steamed and grilled, and their interpretation remains academic debate. In the Nara period, before chopsticks became common, rice was rolled into small balls so it could be picked up easily. During the Heian period, small rectangular rice portions called tonjiki were stacked on plates, and Murasaki Shikibu mentions them in her eleventh-century diary.

The word appears in the Hitachi no Kuni Fudoki of 721 as nigiri-ihi. From the Kamakura period to the early Edo period, onigiri was a quick meal of salted rice balls. Nori only became widely available in the Genroku era, when its cultivation and sheet production spread.

In the 1980s a machine was invented to make triangular onigiri with the filling placed in a hole covered by nori. Packaging that stored the nori separately kept it crisp until eating.

Culture

Onigiri is part of everyday Japanese eating, appearing in bento boxes and on picnics. It is sold in convenience stores, supermarkets and specialist shops, and also served in izakayas and sit-down restaurants. Common fillings include umeboshi plum, salmon, kombu, tuna mayonnaise and roe such as mentaiko. Variants include yaki-onigiri, grilled and glazed with soy sauce or miso, age-onigiri, fried, and bakudan-onigiri, wrapped entirely in seaweed. In Okinawa, pork tamago-onigiri combines rice, pork and egg. Today it is a staple of Japanese restaurants worldwide.

Trivia