Did you know that July 30th is Umeboshi Day? Umeboshi, pickled ume plum, is a traditional Japanese food. As an ingredient, it is indispensable for hinomaru bento, onigiri (rice balls), makizushi (sushi rolls), etc. There is a saying, “Eat an umeboshi and you will be safe from trouble for the day.” The July 30th Umeboshi Day was inspired by this saying, by a Wakayama-based company that processes and distributes plums.
When I was a kid and had a cold or upset stomach, my mother made rice porridge with umeboshi for me. I was able to eat this though I had little appetite and got some of my energy back; it’s a miracle food. Rice porridge is for kids, but for fathers the miracle food is ochazuke. In Japan, fathers typically go for a drink after work with colleagues as a way of better communicating with them. Fired up about their office stories, they overindulge in sake. What they really want at the end of the day is ume chazuke, a dish prepared by pouring either green tea or dashi soup over rice, topped with sour umeboshi and richly-flavored nori. Thanks to the ochazuke, those fathers can avoid hangovers and feel ready for work the next day.
In this way, eating umeboshi can help us on a daily basis. Umeboshi has actually long been considered both a food and a medicine. Umeboshi is made by pickling ume fruits with salt, then drying them. Ume originates from China and is said to have come to Japan around the Nara Period. At first, ume was appreciated for its flowers, but when it was discovered that the fruit was medicinal, it came to be processed the way it is today.
During the Warring States Period, samurai warriors went off to war carrying peppercorns, umeboshi, and dried rice as field rations. Peppercorns worked as an analeptic agent. Umeboshi was not for consumption but just for looking and as a saliva stimulant so that samurai could eat dried rice without other foods. Samurai ate umeboshi infrequently in order to conserve it as a medicine. Recently, those wartime foods for samurai have gained attention as “bushi meshi.” Today, the above-mentioned ume chazuke, a food for company employees, may be a sort of bushi meshi since we see the food energize those corporate warriors.
Over the years, the Japanese people have learned that umeboshi has great effectiveness. Since onigiri with umeboshi rarely spoils, it is certain that umeboshi has antibacterial properties. And as previously described, it also has healing and soothing effects. Plum extract, an ume juice concentrate, has been on the market for more than 60 years as a high-priced health food popular with many users. In the recent years, those plum extract products have evolved into state-of-the-art supplements containing the extract as well as sugar and vitamins, which have blood-flow and fatigue-strength improvement effects for athletes like cyclists and track-and-field stars. The power of umeboshi may have a lot of room for further growth. Details of umeboshi’s ingredients and efficacy will be explained at another time.
Next, I will show you simple steps to make umeboshi at home.
Reported by Yukari Aoike, Sugahara Institute