Here’s to the love of the uncool
My supremely uncool self with one of my first quilts.
I grew up in a neighborhood that was almost all retirees. I would knock on their doors for pledge drives and to sell chocolate bars for school and make friends. I commandeered other people's grandmas and found comfort and love in their homes. They taught me how to sew, knit, quilt, embroider. They made me peanut brittle and Norwegian krumkake (which i still need to figure out a gluten free recipe for). My own nana died when i was very young, but i am glad i got to experience treasured knowledge passed down, things that weren't necessarily cool to others at the time but every day i am thankful for. Even half a world away i find things very similar, the nanas have the knowledge of the uncool things.
Our fresh organic ume arrived, shipped straight from the orchard.
Every year near the end of June, the ume are ready to harvest. While these little oval fruits are usually translated as plum, they are closer to a tart apricot in taste and texture. Because they pack quite a puckery zing they are never just eaten au natural.
Ocaca prepping the fruit in salt and an enzyme bath for pickling.
The two most common ways to handle ume is to either pickle and turn into umeboshi ( basically plum balls) or umeshu (plum liquor) both of which take some old school skill and mad patience.
Each plum had to be washed, stemmed, and pierced before if could be soaked in whiskey and honey.
Most ladies under 50 don’t even attempt to make their own anymore. Sure, you can buy them at the store, and they’re good, tasty even. But i have had so much fun discovering the different flavors of home-made love.
Ume are tucked into giant jars before the alcohol is added to make the umeshu.
These plums are such an acquired Japanese taste, friends are often surprised by my deep and abiding love for them. I started receiving small jars from friends, neighbors, a chef down the street…
“These are from my great aunt, she uses more salt”
“These are from my mom, she adds the red shiso” (an herb somewhere between basil and mint that gives the pickle a bright rusty fuchsia color.
“These are from my nana, she uses honey”
A friend even bought me a souvenir batch that had had Mozart played to them.
It was like love notes packed into the flavor of each pickle. Somewhere a sweet lady had perfected her recipe and put her spin on hundreds of years of tradition and we were connected now through taste. There is a sort of magic in that.
After months in the pickling liquid, plums are set out in special drying baskets to cure in the sun for a few days.
My sweet friend, Ocaca, had seen it done, but never attempted it herself. Between calls to relatives, a weigh in by the chain-smoking grannies at our local watering hole, and the magic of the internet she and i muddled through to some surprising and delicious results.
The soaking process for the umeshu takes a year. The jars have to be agitated every day.
Why am i only now sharing with the class? It takes a year of sitting, waiting, jar shaking before you even know if all your effort paid off. This has a kind of symmetry to me, though. Just as the new fruit is coming ripe, ready to be washed, salted, prodded, and pickled, last year’s efforts finally pay off. Reminding you what all that hard work is for: tasty, salty, tart magic.
The result: a glorious cocktail made with umeshu, orange peel, rosemary, and soda water. Verdict…well worth the wait.