Onigiri (お握り or 御握り), also known as omusubi (お結び) or nigirimeshi (握り飯), is a Japanese rice ball made from white rice. It is usually formed into triangular or cylindrical shapes, and wrapped in nori (seaweed). Onigiri traditionally have sour or salty fillings such as umeboshi (pickled Chinese plum), salted salmon, katsuobushi (smoked and fermented bonito), kombu, tarako or mentaiko (pollock roe), or takanazuke (pickled Japanese giant red mustard greens). Because it is easily portable and eaten by hand, onigiri has been used as portable food or bento from ancient times to the present day. Originally, it was used as a way to use and store left-over rice, but it later became a regular meal. Many Japanese convenience stores and supermarkets stock onigiri with various fillings and flavors. It has become so mainstream that it is even served in izakayas and sit-down restaurants. There are even specialized shops which only sell onigiri to take out. Due to the popularity of this trend in Japan, onigiri has become a popular staple in Japanese restaurants worldwide.

Onigiri is not a form of sushi and should not be confused with the type of sushi called nigirizushi or simply nigiri. Onigiri is made with plain rice (sometimes lightly salted), while sushi is made of rice with vinegar, sugar and salt. Onigiri makes rice portable and easy to eat as well as preserving it, while sushi originated as a way of preserving fish.

History

Prehistoric

On November 12, 1987, lumps of carbonized grains of rice, thought to be riceballs, were excavated from a building belonging to the Yayoi period (2000 years ago) in the Sugitani Chanobatake Ruins in Ishikawa Prefecture. The carbonized rice had traces which revealed that it was formed by human hands, thus it was initially documented as “the oldest onigiri.” In subsequent research, it was thought to be steamed and grilled, rather than boiled like today’s rice, similar to another dish called chimaki. Since then, it has been academically called the “chimaki-shaped carbonized rice lumps (チマキ状炭化米塊)”.

Pre-Modern

Before the use of chopsticks became widespread, in the Nara period, rice was often rolled into a small ball so that it could be easily picked up. In the Heian period, rice was made into small rectangular shapes known as tonjiki so that they could be piled onto a plate and easily eaten. At that time, onigiri were called tonjiki and often consumed at outdoor picnic lunches

Modern

In the 1980s, a machine to make triangular onigiri was invented. Rather than rolling the filling inside, the flavoring was put into a hole in the onigiri and the hole was hidden by nori. Since the onigiri made by this machine came with nori already applied to the rice ball, over time the nori became moist and sticky, clinging to the rice.

A packaging improvement allowed the nori to be stored separately from the rice. Before eating, the diner could open the packet of nori and wrap the onigiri. The use of a hole for filling the onigiri made new flavors of onigiri easier to produce as this cooking process did not require changes from ingredient to ingredient. Modern mechanically wrapped onigiri are specially folded so that the plastic wrapping is between the nori and rice to act as a moisture barrier. When the packaging is pulled open at both ends, the nori and rice come into contact and are eaten together. This packaging is commonly found for both triangular onigiri and rolls (細巻き).

Rice and shapes

Usually, onigiri is made with boiled white rice, though it is sometimes made with different varieties of cooked rice, such as:

-Okowa or kowa-meshi: glutinous rice cooked or steamed with vegetables

-Sekihan: rice cooked with red azuki beans

-Maze-gohan: rice cooked with various preferred ingredients

-Fried rice

-Brown rice

The rice may be seasoned with salt, sesame, furikake, dried shiso flakes, and so on.

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