I’m Japanese American, fluent in Japanese. I’ve always known shichimi as shichimi (or nana-iro-togarashi). Why is it that on a lot of the American packaging for shichimi, they call it nanami? Are they different? I know there’s a difference in ingredients between American and Japanese shichimi due to laws regulating what’s in the shichimi sold in America (Hemp Seeds vs. Poppy Seeds). Is this why? Is it just so they know which ones can/can’t be sent over the pond?
3 comments
It’s shichimi.
It could be something like how Calpis is sold as Calpico, they decided that nanaml worked better in English for some reason.
It could also be a mistake where someone didn’t know it was said shichimi and wrote it as nanami.
Shichi and nana are both words for the number seven. It has seven ingredients: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shichimi
Yeah they have a FAQ about that on the S&B site, it basically says that — in addition to the ingredient change — they decided to change the name because they found that people were confusing the pronunciation of “shichimi” and “ichimi” (ichimi togarashi is just basic red chili pepper, which S&B also sells overseas using the English label Ichimi Togarashi).
So to avoid that confusion, they decided to call the seven-spice one “nanami” instead.