HOW TO USE

• Umeboshi and umeboshi paste add a pleasant tartness to salad dressings, cooked vegetables and sauces.

• Umeboshi is commonly served in Japan as a condiment with rice, or tucked inside a rice ball wrapped in nori (onigiri), and may also be used in makizushi (aka sliced sushi rolls). As part of a bento (Japanese lunchbox), a single umeboshi is often placed in the centre of the rice to recreate the flag of Japan, the Hinomaru Bento.

• In the summer, thick cucumber rounds spread thinly with umeboshi paste are a cooling treat. Umeboshi spread sparingly on cooked sweet corn makes a tasty alternative to butter and salt.

• Umeboshi also goes well with members of the cabbage family, including broccoli, kale, and cauliflower.

• Umeboshi vinegar contains many of the healing qualities and nutrients associated with pickled plums, and is easy and convenient to use. Both pleasantly tart and salty, umeboshi vinegar is especially refreshing on hot afternoons. Use it to liven up salad dressings, homemade pickles and avocado.

• Toss lightly steamed or sautéed vegetables with umeboshi vinegar to taste. When substituting umeboshi vinegar for other types of vinegar, substantially reduce the amount used, or eliminate the salt in the recipe.

• To balance teas, add a little paste or a single seeded plum to bancha tea or to green tea or to herbal teas made from flowers.

• The standard Japanese folk remedy for colds and flus is rice congee (okayu) with umeboshi. You can also mix a little umeboshi paste or a single pitted plum with bancha tea plus a few drops of shoyu or tamari. You can also add some minced fresh ginger.

• When using whole umeboshi plums, it is wise to remove the pit and mince the flesh before adding it to recipes or use umeboshi paste instead.

• The shiso leaves that are often packed with umeboshi plums are delicious when chopped and used as a seasoning inside nori rolls or when tossed in with steamed or sautéed vegetables.

Umeboshi
(pron. oo-may-bosh-ee)
raw, organic, vegan

British author and Japanese food authority Robbie Swinnerton compares umeboshi's taste to the culinary equivalent of a cold shower. Swinnerton writes, "The abrupt, searingly tart, tangy, salty taste jolts the eyes open, shakes the stomach awake, sandpapers off any staleness from the taste buds, and gets the day off to an unforgettable start."

If you’ve ever tried the umeboshi plum, you’ll probably agree. There’s nothing quite like it.

Umeboshi (literally "dried ume") are pickled ume (pron. oo-meh) fruits common in Japan. Ume (Prunus mume) is a species of fruit-bearing tree in the genus Prunus, which, although referred to as a plum, is more closely related to the apricot. They’re extremely sour and salty and vary from unwrinkled to very wrinkled and are usually served as a side dish with rice or stuffed inside rice balls for breakfast and lunch in Japan and increasingly in the West, including Australia.

ORIGINS
As with many of Japan's long-standing foods, the origin of the pickled plum is somewhat obscure. One theory traces it to China, where a dried smoked plum, or ubai, was discovered in a tomb built more than two thousand years ago. The ubai is one of China's oldest medicines and is still used for a variety of purposes such as counteracting nausea, reducing fevers, and controlling coughs.

The ume plant was first brought to Japan around 1500 years ago and it became popular among priests and samurai warriors after the 12th century to prevent fatigue, purify water, rid the body of toxins, and cure specific diseases such as dysentery, typhoid and food poisoning. So much so, that during the 15th and 16th centuries, samurai warriors carried umeboshi to revive themselves, even from the brink of death. During this time, the pickled plum was the soldier's most important field ration, being used to flavour foods such as rice and vegetables.

At this point umeboshi were still considered a medicine only, an extensive folklore having developed about the plum’s ability to prevent and cure certain diseases. It wasn’t until the 17th century that individual families began to make umeboshi in their homes. Umeboshi finally appeared on dining tables from the 19th century, when it was customary to pour green tea over umeboshi and kombu (seaweed) as a tonic. The Japanese began experimenting with ways to concentrate the healing powers of umeboshi. Finally, a dark, sticky, thick liquid called bainiku ekisu (plum extract) was developed and finally formed into pills, called meitan. (Many natural healers feel these concentrated forms of the ume are among the world's most effective natural medicines. Moreover, they do not have the high salt content of pickled plums.)

These days, the centre of Japan's pickled plum industry is in Wakayama Prefecture, on the main island of Honshu. Even before the first orchards were planted, Wakayama's hillsides were abundant in ume trees. The area's mild temperatures, year-round plentiful rain, and sheltered location serve to bring forth the finest and most plentiful fruit in the country.

MAKING UMEBOSHI
Ume plums are picked around the end of June, when they’re still green and their juice is at its peak of acidity, guaranteeing the umeboshi will have as tart a taste as possible. They are then washed and soaked overnight in water to remove any bitterness.

The following day, the soaked plums are placed in large vats in layers topped with glistening white sea salt until each vat is filled. The salt immediately begins to draw out the juice from the plums. A flat pressing lid topped with a heavy weight is then placed on the plums to keep them submerged in the liquid. As the salt penetrates the flesh of the fruit, the pickling process begins; the plums are left to ferment until the end of July (the end of the rainy season).

They are then taken from the vats and placed on racks and left outside to dry for anywhere from three to seven days, depending on the weather.

Next the plums, now wrinkled and shrivelled, are pickled by soaking them in a plum vinegar along with leaves of the red shiso (perilla or beefsteak plant), a herb related to mint but with a slight lemony taste. Apart from adding colour and flavour to umeboshi, shiso has strong antibacterial and preservative qualities both in the pickling process and on the person who eats them.

The umeboshi are left to steep in this vinegar for five days, which the shiso leaves turn a brilliant red. When the plums are removed from the vinegar, they are placed in vats and left to age for up to a year. The remaining salty, sour, red liquid, which accumulates at the bottom of the barrel, is sold as umeboshi vinegar, although it is not a true vinegar.

The entire process is still done by hand. Our supplier has been buying from growers who’ve been making umeboshi the same way for some fifty years. While the umeboshi found in many Oriental food stores are made in just a few weeks using red dye, acids and commercial salt, our umeboshi plums, paste and vinegar are made from organic plums, organic shiso leaves and sea salt.

The umeboshi style of pickling is similar in style to other Asian preserved pickling techniques found in China (sng buay), Vietnam (xí muội or ô mai), and Korea. In South Asian countries there is a similar food called amla in Hindi, prepared in the same way but with Indian gooseberries instead of ume. In Mexico, it is known as chamoy and is usually made with apricot or tamarind and a mix of salt and dry chili.

BENEFITS
Eating umeboshi in Japan is the equivalent to the West’s "an apple a day, keeps the doctor away."
There’s a traditional saying in Japan, "Drink morning tea with umeboshi." The reason is that umeboshi contains citric acid, apple acid, amber acid and crude acid, which help sterilise the intestines while the stomach is empty in the morning. Also, the pyruvic acid in umeboshi helps activate the functions of various organs, generally nourishing the middle organs, such as the stomach, pancreas and spleen. These acids are effective in treating constipation, diarrhoea and flatulence, as well as indigestion and a lack of appetite because they normalise the function of the intestines by sterilising only low-density lipoprotein, leaving high-density lipoprotein in place. Ume, which contain more citric acid than lemons, activate the metabolism and lift fatigue and lactic acid from the body. Ume also help ease other discharges, such as runny nose, vomiting, excessive urination and perspiration. In summer, they are used to prevent weariness caused by heat. The citric acid also helps fix and absorb calcium, which is often difficult for the body to absorb. Pregnant women often crave something sour early in pregnancy because of an instinctive need for citric acid, which boosts the rate of calcium absorption and helps form the skeletal structure of the embryo. Citric acid also controls the secretion of gastric juice, helps prevent stomach ulcers, stimulate the appetite and even eases travel sickness.

Normally the bacteria in the mouth are killed by the hydrochloric acid in the stomach. (A healthy person's stomach is always acidic; therefore, the bacteria that cause food poisoning and other troubles are killed in the stomach.) However, when the stomach is in a weak state or the secretion of gastric juice is not working well due to overeating or drinking, the bacteria go through the stomach and reach the intestines alive. The organic acids in ume make the intestines temporarily acidic, which prevents the live bacteria from increasing in number. After being absorbed through the intestinal wall the acids become alkalised and enter the bloodstream to maintain alkalised blood. Umeboshi is one of the strongest alkalising foods, and helps restore the body's acid-alkali balance. As such, umeboshi have been used in rice balls and other foods for preservation; it is claimed that placing an umeboshi on rice will inhibit bacteria.

SOURCES
Mitoku
Muso
personal correspondence Spiral Foods

MOSQUITO REPELLANT
Macrobiotic teacher Adelbert Nelissen, of the Kushi Institute of Europe in Amsterdam, once recounted how, when he visited Africa, the ceiling of his room would be black with mosquitoes if he opened the windows. Since he didn’t like to sleep with airconditioning, he slept with the windows open and with a pickled ume in his mouth. And claimed he was not bitten once all night long! According to the macrobiotic appreciation of yin-yang, mosquitoes are very yang (being very compact insects) and umeboshi, also being yang (contracting), would therefore not attract mosquitoes.