Fermented & preserved ── Tsukemono (pickles)
Umeboshi
Umeboshi — salt-cured, sun-dried plums with a sourness that cuts through everything
Plums cured in salt, then sun-dried — one of Japan's oldest table preserves. In southern Wakayama, cultivation is said to have spread after wild plum trees on tax-exempt wasteland were deliberately encouraged as a way to ease the local tax burden.
What it's made of
Plums are salted, then finished by drying in the sun. A strong sourness and salt are the point, and adding one to a simmered oily fish is said to soften the fish's smell. Nanko-ume, a large, thick-fleshed cultivar, was registered as a distinct variety in 1965 after years of selective breeding. The plum blossoms in bloom are described in a local saying as worth a million glances and ten leagues of fragrance.
How it's made
Salted plums undergo doyoboshi, a sun-drying carried out during the height of summer; a portion of that year's dried plums were, by custom, kept in plum vinegar and eaten right away, while the rest were stored as an emergency food. Each household is said to have its own way of curing them, carried on as a taste particular to that family. From the Meiji era on, demand rose at times as umeboshi became a ration during Japan's wars.
Why it took this shape
In the Edo period, the Tanabe domain of the Kishu clan held much land too poor for rice farming and struggled under its tax burden, so a castle steward is said to have encouraged planting wild plum trees, yabu-ume, on that unproductive land — the start of serious plum cultivation there. A warm climate and sun-facing mountain terrain suited plum growing well, and the crop is said to have spread across the southern part of the prefecture, its plums earning a reputation in Edo as "Tanabe ume."
Before you go
- How to shop at a supermarketHow to choose prepared foods, sashimi, and packaged sushi, when discount stickers tend to appear, region-only specialties, buying by weight, the checkout and bagging flow, and sampling etiquette at a local supermarket.
- How to shop in a depachika (department store food hall)A guide to browsing prepared foods and bento, choosing wagashi as a gift with a good shelf life, sampling etiquette, end-of-day discounts, asking for cold packs and wrapping, and finding your way around a depachika floor.
- Enjoying a bussanten (regional products fair)A guide to what's sold at a bussanten (regional products fair), how to find one, when it gets crowded, shelf life and taking food home, and how to fit one around a trip.
Dishes in the same style
- Bettara-zukeDaikon salted first, then pickled sweet in rice malt and sugar — said to descend from a lightly pickled daikon once sold at Edo's ebisu-kō market. The rice malt gives it a natural sweetness, and it still headlines Nihonbashi's autumn "Bettara Market."
- Fukujin-zukeSeven kinds of vegetables — daikon, eggplant, lotus root among them — diced and steeped in a soy-based marinade. Said to have originated in Tokyo, it's best known today as curry rice's standard side.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Known for it here
- Known for it here: Wakayama, Minabe
Cultivation of wild yabu-ume plum trees on tax-exempt wasteland is said to be the starting point behind the region's growth as a plum-growing area.
- Known for it here: Wakayama, Tanabe
Alongside Minabe, this was the Edo-period Tanabe domain territory, whose sun-facing mountain climate is said to have suited plum cultivation well.
Contrast
- Nara-zukeMelon salted, then repacked again and again in aged sake lees — the pickle most closely identified with the whole kasuzuke family. It's known for the labor of repeated repacking until the flesh turns amber.
- Shoga no TsukudaniSliced ginger simmered down in soy sauce and mirin, its sharp bite sitting alongside a sweet-salty finish. Served as a palate-refresher beside rice, and thought of as one branch of the tsukudani family.
- Rakkyou-zukeShallots salted first, then steeped in sweet vinegar — a specialty of the sand dunes around Tottori. Hardy enough to grow in dune sand, the shallot is said to have arrived there when a feudal retainer brought it back from a trip to Edo.
- NukazukeVegetables (and in some regions, fish) fermented in a nuka-doko — rice bran mixed with salt. Lactic bacteria and yeast in the bed give it a distinctive sourness, and the bed itself is stirred daily and passed down as a household's own particular flavor.
Uses
- Ume GohanAn Odawara City rice dish cooked with pickled plums and dried whitebait mixed in. In a region where plums planted around the castle town were long valued by traveling merchants, it is said to have been devised by a local food educator and spread as a home dish.
- OkaisanRice is simmered in water steeped with roasted tea — what Wakayama fondly calls chagayu. Said to have stretched scarce rice into a filling meal in a mountainous prefecture, it's topped differently by every household, with sweet potato, umeboshi, or kinzanji miso.