Mochi is pounded glutinous-rice cake — a soft, dense, intensely chewy Japanese staple made by steaming short-grain sticky rice (mochigome, Oryza sativa var. glutinosa) and then pounding it to a smooth, stretchy, homogeneous mass. It is a distinct culinary product rather than merely cooked rice: the pounding breaks down the grains completely into an elastic, glue-like paste that sets into a supple cake, springy and slightly sweet, with a clean, mild, faintly milky rice flavour. Mochi is at once everyday food and ritual object — grilled and dipped in soy sauce, simmered soft in the New Year soup zoni, wrapped around sweet bean paste as a confection, or stretched into the skins of daifuku and the shells of mochi ice cream. Its defining quality is texture: a yielding, taffy-like chew found in few other foods, prized in Japan and increasingly familiar around the world.