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John Lindsey
18th April 2001, 02:35
During my recent visit to Japan, I had the opportunity to taste real umeboshi, made the old fashioned way. The difference was striking...like home brew beer vs. the name brand stuff.

First of all, it had a slightly red color unlike the common bright red ones that I suspect have food dye added to them. The taste was excellent and was hard to explain.

From what I recall, umeboshi have a long history in Japan and were used to preserve food such as rice, which might be why you still see them used in bento. They are also supposed to be good at cleaning out your system, especially in the case of worms...

Has anyone had any experiences with umeboshi or even made their own?

burp
18th April 2001, 05:40
Howdy,

Did you try the ones pickled with shiso? Adds a bit of crispness to the flavor. Probably my favorite.

Can't say we've ever made umeboshi before, but everytime we make a trip back to Japan (or my in-laws make a trip here) we end up with good umeboshi. Nothing quite like it!

Enjoy!

mikehansen

Dave Lowry
18th April 2001, 17:23
Making umeboshi is a trifle time-consuming. “Trifle” in the same sense our perfervid correspondent Popie was a trifle confusing. Gotta start in June, when the ume are still green on the trees. Ume, by the way, is usually translated as “plum” but it’s actually Prunus mume, closer to our apricots, which are, as we all know if we watch the “Victory Garden,” Prunus armeniaca.
If you’ve been to Japan in early June, you’ve gotten wet. It’s tsuyu, the rainy season. The characters for tsuyu (which can also be pronounced “bai-u”) though, really mean “plum rains,” since that’s the time when the fruit’s picked, just starting to turn yellow, but not yet at all sweet. And wet. The daily soaking in those rains is supposed to be vital to making good umeboshi, even though they have to be very dry before they’re pickled, or they turn moldy. The plums are dried on bamboo trays for a couple of days after picking. Then they have to be thoroughly soaked in water again or they’ll be really bitter. Along with a little water, they are put in big porcelain kame, a kind of jug and get laced with a lot of salt and weighted down. One of the tricks is getting the salt to penetrate the plums evenly. There are lots of obasan okuden for this. They sit until midsummer (the umeboshi, not the obasan), when akajiso leaves ripen.
Akajiso is a variety of shiso—I think it’s called perilla or beefsteak plant in this country--with dark purple leaves. (The green kind of shiso that you get with sushi won’t work.) Those are added to the pot; that’s what turns the umeboshi deep, brick red. It also adds perilla aldehyde, a preservative alkaline. The mixture steeps in its own juices until late summer, then the plums are taken out and left for a couple of days or so sitting on trays in the sun. It is a critical part of the process, called doyoboshi; the plums have to get two or three days of continuous sun. If it rains, you have to start the drying again. This is the period of the pickling when the flesh gets more wrinkled than the wattles on Hillary Clinton’s neck. Some of you older futs may have heard the expression “umeboshi obasan” to describe an older woman’s skin. It comes, obviously, from the look of the plums.

The longer the plums dry, the more tart the flavour. Recently a trend in Japan for shio-hikaeme umeboshi, which are quickly cured, with very little salt and are supposed to be healthier. They’re a lot juicier than the old-fashioned kind.

Hard to say what you had in Japan, Mr. Lindsey; there are dozens of different recipes. In the Kanto region, a popular kind of umeboshi has them pickling for a month or so, then eating them without adding the shiso. That’s why Kanto umeboshi are kind of amber in colour. In Kyushu and some other places they add shochu to the pickling medium, an ingredient no doubt familiar to the number of readers at this site in varying stages of alcohol dependency. (Those similarly inclined may know, providing the brain cells used for the retrieval of such knowledge have not been completely dissolved by now, that these same ume are the basis for umeshu or plum liquor. The plums left over from the process for making the liquor, umezuke, are an incredible treat. If you are ever in a house where they still make umeshu, do not pass an opportunity to try umezuke.)

Umeboshi probably started as a medicine, or at least as a disinfectant. Umezu, the juice from the pickling process was used mixed with rice to preserve it. Probably only later on was it discovered the plums were good to eat. Umeboshi and their pickling juices are highly alkaline and have good preservative properties. That’s why they are associated with rice balls like the hinomaru kind. They help kill that nasty bacilla cereus, the heat-resistant bacteria that breeds in room temperature rice faster and more prolifically than rappers collect indictments. Umeboshi chopped finely and added to green tea was my sensei’s wife’s cure for every stomach problem from a simple bellyache to intestinal cancer.
The juice produced in the pickling process is important. Haku-umezu is the stuff that’s drawn off before the shiso leaves are added. Modern Japanese call it “ume-jusu.” It’s a kind of tonic that’s supposed to make you run higher and jump faster. In my sensei’s family they have an old recipe with this and a secret ingredient for a drink you’re advised to quaff after a battle. It’s to combat the mental and physical fatigue that set in and make you vulnerable to a counter-attack. It’s the liquid form of “tightening your helmet cords after a victory.”
Aka-umezu is the juice after the shiso’s been added. Not as potent, but tastier. It’s used for pickling daikon or other vegetables; also—this is a trick you can try—add a bit to the water when you’re making sushi rice.

Incidentally, umeboshi are only that so long as the pit is still in. The flesh, cut off, is bainiku or “plum meat.” When it’s ground up as a topping for rice or used some other way, it is ume-neri. The old word for umeboshi is anbai. “Salt-plum.” Anbai o miru is a colloquial expression you might still hear in backwater Japan. It means to look at the plums to make sure they’re pickling correctly; by extension, it means to check over things to make sure all is going okay.

Finally, this may seem odd, but trust me. Next year during the holidays, when you have a cold turkey sandwich, have a couple of umeboshi with it. Umeboshi and turkey sandwiches go together better than country music and double-digit IQs.

Cordially,

Mark Brecht
18th April 2001, 17:41
Umeboshi ? ? ?

Y U C K ! ! !

PS: :up: Mabye with some crushed ice and a bottle of Jinro...

Harold James
19th April 2001, 09:07
A member of my wife's family back home in the countryside owns a resturant and tea room. The tea room specializes in ma-cha, the bitter green tea. You can get toast with butter and green tea powder, and even green-tea soba... As everyone knows, ma-cha mixes pretty good with icecream.

While at this resturant I ordered a bowl of ma-cha ice (cream) I got a big bowl of green tea ice-cream, with a few spoonfulls of fresh azuki beans (very sweet) and little mochi balls. The scoop of icecream was covered in fresh whipped cream and then they stuck a big soft umeboshi on top of it.

Yep, green tea ice-cream with umiboshi. It was... really good too!!!! The sour taste of the plum matched the bitter taste of the tea. A stange combination for sure, but now I sort of think it's the only way to eat green tea ice-cream.

got to get some now...

have a nice day

Neuromantic
8th August 2001, 05:25
I remember my first umeboshi vividly. We sat around the table, finishing off the last of the rice. My best friend's (Japanese) wife was eating her's with furikake and umeboshi. I politely requested one, with little knowlege of what it was, or how to eat it. I just stuck the whole thing into my mouth. Boy was I surprized........

I've actually learned to eat them again. I love them in onigiri.

red_fists
8th August 2001, 07:13
Being married to a japanese we tend to get umeboshi occasionally on the Table.

Not overly fond of them, but than I get every day for Lunch with my Bento. :-)

Luckily my Wife shares my semi-dislike. ;)

Just a sidenote, from something that my Wife told me.
The red UmeBoshi on the bed of rice is supposed to represent the japanese Flag, one reason why it is always placed in the center.
Apparently it started during WWII when food was at a premium and all that was there to eat was Umeboshi & other pickled/preserved Food and mostly rice with hardly any other food.

Margaret Lo
9th August 2001, 17:15
Originally posted by Mark Brecht
Umeboshi ? ? ?

Y U C K ! ! !

PS: :up: Mabye with some crushed ice and a bottle of Jinro...

Hey Mark - do you have a sweet tooth? In my experience, people who like sweets often dislike or at best only somewhat like umeboshi.

My friends who dislike sweets LOVE umeboshi, along with bitter tastes in foods - like bitter melon.

M