Ume, the Japanese plum, plays a significant role in Japanese culture.
The Japanese population greatly admires the ume flowers that bloom in February for their humble elegance. The flowers represent resilience and symbolize the arrival of spring.
The tree bears green fruits, called ume.
These are ready for harvesting at the end of May and the beginning of June. We use these young fruits to make umeshu, ume-infused liquor.
Continuous rain during the rainy season provides sufficient moisture for the green fruits to mature to an orange-yellow color.
We harvest these to make salt-pickled plums, umeboshi.
The ume fruits are never eaten raw.
The seeds contain amygdalin, a cyanogenic glycoside that can be converted into cyanide. The fruit itself has just a fraction of this chemical.
The Japanese ume plum has many health benefits.
Ume plums are very acidic, and their citric acid is essential for breaking down carbohydrates and producing energy in our bodies. Ume has some degree of sterilization and antibacterial properties.
The custom of making salt-pickled plums, umeboshi, goes back to the 8th century. The aristocrat consumed it to maintain and care for their health.
During the civil war of the 15th to early 17th century, fighting warriors carried a small amount of umeboshi mixed with rice and other ingredients as part of their essential diet on the battlefields. By the 18th century, it had become common for people to enjoy it.
I always keep umeboshi in the refrigerator. I enjoy eating it with plain cooked rice. I add it to vegetable pickling liquid, fish simmering stock, and salad dressing to impart a unique, salty, and sour flavor.
The history of making umeshu (Japanese ume plum liquor) goes back to the Edo period (1600-1868). Back then, the fruits were pickled with sugar in sake.
Today, we make umeshu with rock sugar and distilled alcohol, known as white liquor.
I have an eight-year-old umeshu that remains in a couple of sanitized liquor bottles. It entertains me from time to time. It presents a beautiful amber color, and the flavor is exquisite and mature.
The years passed without me making a new batch of umeshu, due to the difficulty in acquiring the right, beautiful fruits at the right time. They are grown on the West Coast. The sales season for these fruits at the East Coast Japanese stores, such as Mitsuwa Marketplace in New Jersey, is very short, and purchasing is highly competitive.
This year, I decided to make one and made a special effort to get the fruits at one of the online stores before they were sold out. I ordered rock sugar, too.
The fruits arrived, and I was hugely disappointed that they were not Japanese ume, but Janerik (sour green plums). I tasted one and concluded that $90 went down the toilet.
When it comes to umeshu, it is delicious, but consumption should be well-managed due to its high sugar and alcohol content. Proper consumption – 1/4 cup daily - promotes increased HDL cholesterol, prevents arteriosclerosis, and aids digestion.
