Ehoumaki (Fake)

Ehoumaki (ehoumaki) is a food from Osaka, Japan. Personally I think of it as a big fat sushi roll, the kind you don’t cut. Around February 3rd you face the “eho” direction and eat a whole one, and you’ll have good luck next year.

Of course “eho” means the direction of “eho”… basically the lucky direction. Which side is lucky I don’t know since I’m not Japanese, I’m just here for the ride.

Making ehoumaki is about the same as the sushi from before, or Korean gimbap, except the fillings are different, I guess. Ehoumaki is supposed to have 7 ingredients, representing the 7 lucky gods, so I scraped together 7 too: pork floss, egg roll, ham, cucumber, daikon, tuna, shrimp.

The annoying parts are the shrimp and the egg roll. For the egg roll you make a separate tamagoyaki and slice it into strips. For the shrimp you buy shrimp, steam them, pull out the meat, and slice that into strips too… tuna comes in cans so whatever, and the rest is just rolling.

Once you roll it up the feeling is that this thing is fucking huge… a thick, long log, and it didn’t fit on my plate either. Thought about it and in the end I just cut it.

Supposedly eating ehoumaki facing the eho direction brings good luck, but February 3rd had already passed, and I’ve never had any luck to begin with, so cutting it was fine.

Taste was good, though. Richer than the last one.