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Nine people across Japan have died after choking to death on traditional New Year rice cakes, prompting officials in the country to advise people learn first aid before eating the festive morsels.
Cakes made from pounded sticky rice, called Mochi, are a popular treat around Japanese New Year, with a seasonal popularity akin to mine pies in Britain.
They are often decorated in bright pastel colours and given out for free at Shinto shrines, which Japanese people traditionally visit for New Year.
But the cakes, which are usually served grilled or in a broth with sweet beans, appear to get stuck in people’s throats with alarming regularity.
Authorities are warning people buying the cakes to eat them slowly and carefully.
The 12 food trends of ChristmasShow all 12 1 /12The 12 food trends of Christmas The 12 food trends of Christmas The course In Nottinghamshire, bread legend Emmanuel Hadjiandreou is teaching the stollen (pictured) and posh mince pie knowledge used in bakeries. The lesson takes place at the Cookery School of the Year-winning School of Artisan Food in Worksop (£165, 10am-5pm, 15 December, schoolofartisanfood.org).
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The 12 food trends of Christmas The crackling One bite of good pork crackling and the appeal is obvious. And devotees are awaiting with relish Mr Trotter's English Mustard Pork Crackling next week (£1.89, Selfridges, pictured). Co-founder Rupert Ponsonby explains why they're pioneering. "The pork is British, not Danish; making British crackling was an untried project. And the pigs are outdoors-reared." For porcine terroir bragging rights, the crackling is deep-fried three times.
The 12 food trends of Christmas The cocktail World Class UK Bartender of the Year James Fowler will be breaking out his Zacanta cocktail (pictured) – Christmas mincemeat, spiced pineapple, Ron Zacapa 23 rum and a swirling hot date foam – at The Larderhouse in Bournemouth next week.
The 12 food trends of Christmas The cocktail Myles Donneky at Aqua Shard (on level 31 of London's Shard) has created a drink called Old St Nick (pictured) featuring Bulleit Whiskey, Johnnie Walker Black, clementine, and mince-pie syrup. Its popularity has taken even Donneky by surprise. "It's going down a storm; we serve it in a Christmas stocking."
The 12 food trends of Christmas The turkey While beef and capon became the nation's festive show-stoppers for several years, 82 per cent of us will apparently be opting for turkey this year. Though not just any turkey: it's Norfolk Black (pictured) and Bronze birds that are in demand – with an Asian twist.
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The 12 food trends of Christmas The crispy skin Think it's still all about the goose fat? Not so. Popular in America and now in Britain is coconut oil. Bloggers-cum-health gurus the Hemsley sisters, whose cookbook The Art of Eating Well is selling well, have launched a pot of extra-virgin cold-pressed raw coconut oil for rubbing on roasts with Vita Coco (£5.99, Tesco). Jax Coco, run by Jane Gottschalk, meanwhile, has released Virgin Centrifuged Coconut Oil, made from organic oil (£10, jaxcoco.com). It's used by top chefs such as Tom Aikens and championed by nutritionists including Gabriela Peacock.
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The 12 food trends of Christmas The glassware Bored with Riedel? Designer Clive Darby of Rake Style has constructed a Copper Kettle with Ketel One Vodka for Yule (pictured). First to use it is Gordon Ramsay's London House for its Winds of Change cocktail of pastis, apple, vodka and heather honey.
The 12 food trends of Christmas The sweet French macarons have had their day as the pretty gift for the sweet-toothed. Shropshire company Merangz, known for its flamboyant Giant Swiss Merangz, is selling dark chocolate and Sicilian orange, brandy-soaked fruit Christmas pudding, vanilla sherry trifle, chocolate and cherry, Irish whiskey, and peppermint dark chocolate versions, until 15 January (£5.95 a box). The inventors, Brian and Leanne Crowther, say their meringues are slow-baked for a crisp shell and cloud-light mallowy centre. Available in Manchester and Birmingham Selfridges, Shropshire's Ludlow Food Centre and more (merangz.co.uk).
The 12 food trends of Christmas The wine gadget Arguably the most chichi pressie for DIY wine-tasters is the Coravin Wine Access System, (£269, harrods.com), which allows the wine to flow out through a needle while leaving the cork in place (preventing oxidisation), meaning you can taste how the same bottle evolves over weeks, months or even longer. "It is to wine what downloading is to music," explains Charlotte Sager-Wilde of Mission, a wine bar-cum-restaurant in Bethnal Green, which sells rare vinos by the glass. "It's great if you feel like a glass of white followed by a red and it's just you at home," she adds. So no excuses for plonk this Noël.
The 12 food trends of Christmas The three-bird roast It's enough to make Henry VIII green with envy. The latest additions from the butcher The Ginger Pig are turkey rolled with duck and pheasant with a pork-and-chestnut stuffing (serves 16, £150) and a goose with chicken, pigeon and porky prune stuffing (£170, thegingerpig.co.uk). The birds are dry-plucked – 99 percent of chickens aren't – and hung for 7 to 14 days, imparting greater flavour and succulence, says the butcher's Arabella Wentworth Waites. She adds: "The Bronze turkeys and geese have a lauded life. Their diet is grass and herbage from fields and meadow around Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire." The compulsion for a three-bird roast has hit the high-street, too. Waitrose has a three-bird roast wrap, while Sainsbury's has unveiled a frozen edition.
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The 12 food trends of Christmas The snifter Last month, Jim Murray's Whisky Bible named Japan's Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013 the best whisky in the world; no Scottish drink made it to the top five. Fighting back for pressie season, a cracking single malt, previously not readily available. Hailing from an under-exposed distillery in Scotland's Dufftown is Mortlach, a tipple loved by those in the know. Expect complex, spicy, sherried character. (Rare Old, £56.95; 18-Year Old, £174; 25-Year Old, £585, thewhiskyexchange.com.)
The 12 food trends of Christmas The New Year's diet Since winning MasterChef and opening a restaurant, Shelina Permalloo, known for her sunny Mauritian flavours, realised she'd not had time to keep herself svelte, so wrote recipes to shed 20 kilos. As a chef, the meals weren't traditional "diet" grub and didn't compromise on flavour (chermoula sea bream pictured) – and she has now compiled them in a book, The Sunshine Diet (£14.99, Ebury, from 8 January).
The country’s Yomiuri newspaper reported late last week that 128 people had been rushed to hospitals around the country from choking on festive mocha.
Nine of those people had died as a result, it said.
In Tokyo, the country’s capital, 18 people were taken to hospital in the first three days of the year, with three of those people dying, according to the city’s fire service.
The department advised people cut the cakes into small pieces, chew them slowly, and learn how to perform basic first aid before indulging.
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