1, Japanese soba has hot and cold two ways to eat:

(1) cold noodles clear soup, over ice water, drained, plate, sprinkle some shredded seaweed, and then no decoration.

(2) Hot noodles are served with out sauce and seasoned with shichimi, the soup base should be light, simmered with kombu, mackerel and dried mushrooms to highlight the wheat flavor of the soba, and there's also a heavier-flavored way of eating it, where the soup base is simmered with several flavors of seafood, plus soy sauce and sake.

2, soba is known as the healthiest food, many longevity villages in Japan to its staple food. Because buckwheat itself grows in barren alpine areas, such as Nagano Prefecture, Yamanashi Prefecture, can not produce rice, you have to grow buckwheat, so Japan has a very early habit of eating buckwheat.

Expanded information:

Japan switched to a solar calendar in 1873 AD, the sixth year after the Meiji Restoration. Nowadays, the lunar calendar is hardly used, and even the New Year is celebrated according to the solar calendar. Here, the so-called "Goshoku cuisine", or New Year's dinner, is eaten on New Year's Day. On New Year's Eve, they eat buckwheat noodles, which the Japanese call "nigetsu soba".

The custom of eating "Nigetsu Soba" began in the Edo period in the 18th century. As for the origin and significance, some people say it is a prayer for longevity, just like Chinese people eat longevity noodles on their birthdays. Others say that soba noodles are low in toughness and break easily, and that eating soba on New Year's Eve is a way to cut off the bad luck of the old year in order to welcome a brand new one.

People's Daily Online - Japanese people eat soba on New Year's Eve? Called the "more buckwheat"

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