Fermented & preserved
Shikinbai
Shikinbai — salted plums pickled with red shiso
Said to have been devised by Mito lord Tokugawa Nariaki to use every plum from Kairakuen, damaged fruit is split, pitted, and salted with red shiso — a preserve also called ume-bishio, eaten over rice or tossed with smashed cucumber.
- Origin: Ibaraki Mito
- About 100 km northeast of Tokyo
What it's made of
Bruised or misshapen plums, unfit for pickling whole, are cracked open with a wooden mallet, pitted, and cured with just their flesh in salt and red shiso. The result is a soft, jammy preserve where the plums' tartness meets the fragrance of shiso, turning a bright reddish-purple in the process — also known as "ume-bishio," a dish tied to Mito's famed plum groves and eaten over rice, porridge, or smashed cucumber.
How it's made
Plums still slightly firm are cracked with a wooden mallet and pitted, then tossed with salt at about 10 to 15 percent of the flesh's weight. Red shiso, salted separately to draw out its bitterness, is folded in, and the jar is shaken daily so the color and salt spread evenly through. Once the plum vinegar rises and the color turns a deep reddish-purple, it's ready — served over rice or porridge, or tossed with smashed cucumber, after a slow and hands-on process.
Why it took this shape
Mito's Kairakuen garden was planted with a great many plum trees, and the dish is said to have grown from a wish to make full use of even the bruised or blemished fruit. The plums' tartness was valued for easing fatigue, and its long keeping quality made it a year-round staple. Curing the flesh in salt and shiso is what lets it hold up to long storage, and it's still made today as part of each household's seasonal plum work.
Dishes in the same style
- Achara ZukeWhite melon, eggplant, and lotus root are pickled in a sweet vinegar spiked with red chili — the name is said to trace to the Portuguese 'achar', carried in through Hakata Bay's old trade, and an odd number of vegetables is used for Obon hospitality.
- AhodakiOld takuan pickle, once its flavor and aroma have faded, is desalted and simmered again in soy sauce, a pantry staple from the Hokusei area. Its name — playfully self-deprecating, roughly "doing a foolish thing" — nods to eating it well past its prime, a frugal way to waste nothing.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Also from Ibaraki
- Aka MochiReddish sorghum flour is kneaded with hot water, boiled into dumplings, and coated with sweet bean paste or soybean flour. In flood-prone areas where rice and wheat often failed, sorghum alone survived, making this a stand-in staple.
- Ankou-nabeMonkfish meat, skin, liver, and stomach simmered with vegetables, a winter pot of northern Ibaraki. It is described as a more approachable version of dobujiru, which fishermen ate aboard their boats, and comes in miso and soy-sauce versions.
- Ankou no TomozuBoiled monkfish — flesh, fin, liver, and more — is dipped in a vinegared miso worked through with its own liver, a winter dish from the north coast often paired with fugu as one of Japan's twin winter delicacies.
- Garigari NamasuDaikon is coarsely grated with a bamboo oni-oroshi grater — hence the crunchy 'gari-gari' name — then tossed with vinegared fish. The rough texture is the point, and the dish turns up at New Year's and other gatherings.
- Gomoku InarizushiFried tofu pockets are stuffed with vinegared rice mixed with carrot, burdock, and shiitake. In Kasama, home to Kasama Inari Shrine, the mix grows even more colorful with local soba and walnuts, served to shrine visitors.
- Gosai-zukeSalted, fermented sardines are layered with daikon, yuzu, and chili for a winter preserve from the Rokko coast. As sardine catches have thinned, saury increasingly takes their place.