梅干し

Sorry for the long wait between updates, if anyone was actually waiting. This should just be a short update about ume, a fruit called alternately Japanese apricot and Chinese plum. It originally came from China, but it's a lot more like an apricot than a plum, so take your choice of translations. They start out green, but if you give them time to ripen, they turn an orangish color, rather like apricots. Unfortunately, they don't taste particularly good, unlike their more familiar western relatives.


When they're still green, you can use them to flavor alcohol, I think shouchuu, but I'm not sure, to make umeshu, which means plum wine. It's really sweet and most people seem to like it. I didn't do that, however. I bought a bag of ume for 100 yen to see how they were and to see if I could make umeboshi. To do that, one needs salt (not pictured) and a bit of this:


This is called white liquor (howaito rikaa) and it tastes pretty bad on its own, but I guess it isn't really made for drinking. You basically just wash the Japanese apricots in it, then roll them around in a bunch of salt. Then you put them in a bag and put something heavy on top of them for a few days. A bunch of the juice comes out and they sort of pickle in it, getting soft and staying sour. Here's the result:



Normally they are red, but mine are more brown because I didn't put any akashiso, a red leaf in with them because I didn't want to buy a big bag of it for only using a little. They're still good, though. The only annoying part is that they still have the pits in them, so you have to spit those out. Beside the umeboshi, you'll notice a limited time brew from Yebisu which is one of the best beers I've had here. It's not quite as good as the other amber beer I had, though. I have to get that from a convenience store on the other side of town, sadly, because they don't have it at the one by my house. Well, that's it.