The dance photo accompanying this story is 75 years old.
The dance form it represents is centuries old.
Shown are six women in Vernon in 1950 performing a traditional Japanese Odori dance. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't have any location as to where the photo was taken, and there's only one name attached. That is Pearl Kawamoto at the far left.
Odori comes from the process of making the traditional Japanese drink sake. Odori is the second day of building the moromi mash, which is the name for the fermenting mass made by mashing shubo, or just yeast, steamed rice, koji, and water together (from nada-ken.com).
(Koji, according to thewasabicompany.co.uk, is "a cornerstone of Japanese cuisine; more than just a traditional ingredient —it is a living, transformative tool that has been shaping the culinary landscape of Japan for over a thousand years." Koji refers to grains like rice, barley or soybeans that have been inoculated with a specific mould called Aspergillus oryzae. Koji spores grow on the grains under controlled conditions, these spore play a crucial role by producing enzymes that break down proteins, fats and carbohydrates into simpler compounds like amino acids, fatty acids and sugars).
Odori literally means "dance," and, as mentioned, it's the name of the second day of the four-day Sandan Jikomi process of building up the main moromi mash in sake production. During the odori stage, the yeast in the mash will propagate and fill out more of the tank before moving on to the subsequent additions of ingredients.
So why is it called Odori Dance?
Well, according to urbansake.com, there are two ideas as to why they call this step “dance."
As stated above there are no additions of any ingredients on Day 2, so perhaps the brewers have free time to go dancing.
An alternate explanation is that as the yeast in the mash get active, the moromi starts to actively bubble, causing the surface to “dance." Since there are no additions, the moromi tank remains about 30 per cent full.
The history of the Odori dance goes back hundreds and hundreds of years.
Odori shares the same origin as Kabuki, a form of Japanese theatre that mixes dramatic performance with traditional dance. The classical style of Japanese Odori was established nearly 230 years ago in Tokyo when Japan was still governed by a shogun, whose lords served him as loyal as they were served by their samurai (from the University of Alberta).
