豆撒き, lit. bean throwing

I threw some beans out of our door. I also had a go at shouting “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!“. Why? Today is the Japanese Bean throwing ceremony, Setsubun, that marks the start of each season.

At the start of the year I had the idea of trying to appropriate as many festivals as I could, preferable ones involving food. I’m a big fan of those small celebrations unique to one place or community, like the tomato fight in Buñol in Valencia, and this is really an exercise in trying to seek more traditions of that sort out.  I thought I’d test the idea out on the month of February. So I sat down with wikipedia’s list of observances and drew up a calendar of possible days. I’ll let you know how I get on.

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