The fifteenth of February is Nehan-e, the day the Buddha died. In the north of Nagano, households make yashoma on that day and set it on the household altar. It is made on the evening of the fourteenth and cut and offered on the morning of the fifteenth.

The account of the name is very direct, and it is not a story about cooking at all. As the Buddha was dying, a disciple called Yasho offered him a dumpling made from rice flour. The Buddha said, Yasho, that was good, and died. Hence yashoma.

A second explanation says the shape, kneaded and gripped in one hand, resembles a horse's back, yase-uma, and that the word wore down from there.

The making is closer to confectionery than to cooking. Rice flour is kneaded with boiling water, colored, and assembled the way a stick of rock candy is built, so that a pattern runs the whole length. It is rolled out by hand to about six centimeters across and cut into slices a centimeter thick, and the picture appears when you cut it. Making the pattern takes skill, and classes are held where someone who can do it teaches those who cannot. At the temples it is handed out to worshippers and to children after the service.