What's being processed in the bottle?

January 3, 2021 4:20 PM

In the animated movie In This Corner of the World, set in WW2 Japan, some of the characters in a subsistence, rural household are depicted -- in the context of kitchen chores -- of repeatedly tamping a stick into a narrow necked glass bottle with something in it.

I expect this is a kind of mortar/pestle action, and if so, my guess is it would either be salt or rice in the bottle. If you have any historical knowledge of what this chore is and what the material being processed is, I'd like to have this little mystery cleared up. (It's a really lovely movie, BTW.)

posted by seanmpuckett to Food & Drink (1 answer total)

Best answer: I haven't seen the movie, but I have the manga, which I highly recommend. What they're doing is either pounding or polishing rice. See the bottom of this page: https://mangadex.org/chapter/223636/3.

Note that Mangadex is under heavy load right now due to everyone being home for the holidays, so I've posted the image on Imgur also: https://imgur.com/eP8n7jc

If you liked In This Corner of the World, you might also like her next work, Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms. It deals with the aftermath and the story from 10 years, 20 years, and 50 years later.
posted by ralan at 6:42 PM on January 3, 2021 [5 favorites]