Season of Japanese Apricot 2: making Ume drinks

This week I tell you several easier ways than the recipe last week to process Japanese apricots. It’s to extract juice from the fruit. You see, Japanese apricots are strongly acidic. We can extract its very sour juice that can last for at least several months. i.e. The fruit will help us survive harsh Japanese summer. One of the most “traditional” ways to extract the nectar is, making Umesh liquor. It’s definitely easier than making compotes from Japanese apricot. Here is how-to:

1. This part is the same as the last week’s recipe. Choose unripe green Ume fruits, wash them gently, and remove their stems after drying them with clean cloth. Then, perforate the fruits with a bundle of skewers
2. Put the fruits and crystal sugar alternately in a clean jar. The total weight of the sugar is 80% of the weight of Ume. End the layer with sugar, and pour distilled liquor of minimum 35%, like vodka or whisky, over the layer. For 1 Kg of Ume, 1.8 L of liquor is the ratio.
3. Store the jar in a cool and dark place. Wait for about 3 month until all the sugars melt, and the contents become tasty alcohol.

My Umesh made this year.

This jar is almost 365 days later after the Umesh preparation.
 I should take out the fruits now.
 Japanese apricots in this condition are tasty as dessert for adults,
 and can be good ingredients for fruit cakes.
 When she uses Ume fruits in this condition,
 my mom loves to bake fruit cake by adding a bit of white miso paste in batter.

You can start drinking Umesh in the same year of your brewing. BUT, I tell you, patience for maturation brings spectacular rewards. One day, I had a chance to enjoy Umesh liquor that was made in the early 1970s. An octogenarian lady made it when she was in her early 40s. Since then, the jar was sleeping in a corner of her kitchen … Its taste some 40 years later was ECSTATIC! Yes, it was still sweet liquor, but there was no pushy, or hasty assertiveness of young Umesh. Nevertheless, the echo of its flavor lingered in a very subtle way on our tongue. Yeah, the impression of it is not at all simple, but pleasantly unforgettable … It’s totally up to you for the starting date of drinking Umesh. If you decide to wait 40 years, you’d better separate the fruit and the liquor after one year of the preparation. 😆 

This Umesh is in its 3^rd year.
 Er, it’s very difficult to refrain from drinking them …

Umesh liquor can be enjoyed as drink, or ingredient for cooking. But, of course, not everybody can enjoy alcohol. Relax. There are another simple ways to extract the juice from Ume fruits. We can substitute distilled liquor in above recipe with (whatever) grain vinegar. The ratio of the fruit and crystal sugar is 1 to 1 this case, and the amount of vinegar is 800cc for 500g of Ume. Just as Umesh, when the sugar melts, the jar is ready for us to enjoy. We can drink it diluted by simple H2O or sparkling water. Or use it for cooking when vinegar is needed. It lasts in room temperature for more than a year. Another method is to make Ume syrup. Let me explain the way with photo. First, Ume syrup with brown sugar. It’s damned simple.

First, find small unripe Japanese apricots, wash them gently, dry them with clean cloth and remove stems.

Put them in a clean jar and cover with brown sugar of the same weight: for 500g of the fruit, 500g of sugar, I mean. Seal and store them in a cool, dark place for 2 weeks. You may want to stir the content at 1 week’s mark.

After 2 weeks, the juice of the fruit is completely mixed with sugar and becomes sweet syrup. It’s good for pancakes and vanilla ice cream. 😋 We can store them in refrig for a year max.

Japanese apricots after their syrup extracted. They do not have tartness at all. We can lick them like candy, though their stones are not edible.

Another way to have syrup out of Japanese apricots is with honey. This time, we use ripe fruits. I always use those scarred Ume as matured ones are easy to be damaged by falling on the ground. I wash them gently, soak them for about 2-3 hours in cold water, wipe gently with clean cloth, cut off the damaged part, and put them in a jar. Next, I pour honey over the fruit of the same weight: for 1kg of prepared Ume fruits, 1kg of honey. Keep the jar in cool and dark place, wait for 10 to 12 days, and done!

Ripe Japanese apricots with honey, 1 night after the preparation.
 Our family LOVES the concoction so that I make it a lot every year.

Oh, one caution.
 Don’t pack the jar.
 It’s fermentation process going on.
 The liquid can burst out from the jar in the middle of the process.
 This photo is for a bad example.

11 days after, and the process is over.
 (I was busy and could not use 10^th day for this.)
 I store the strained syrup in refrig.
 They can last for a year.
 We can make a drink by diluting the liquid
 with H2O, sparkling water, alcohol, etc.
 When you add it to cold milk,
 the glass immediately turns into sweet yogurt drink.
😊
  The syrup can also be used for cooking, like for braising meat.

The fruit after extracted juice by honey.
 They are plump, soft, sweet, and a bit sour dessert.
 We can keep them in refrig for about a week, I guess.
 I mean, it has never stayed in our refrig that long.
 Don’t overeat them, please.
 They are still Japanese apricots,
 and can upset your stomach if you eat too much at once.

Those collapsed fruits are cooked
 with additional granulated sugar,
 and become a sort of jam.

Like this.
 We can use it for toast bread, or glazing meat.

I am lucky enough to collect organic Japanese apricot every June for our family. Though, some crisis might be looming over our Ume tree … Last year, Kanagawa Prefecture found Plum Pox Virus in several trees in Yokohama and Kawasaki. Based on this incident, the prefecture removed all the apricot trees, Ume trees included, in some towns in Tsurumi 鶴見 and Kohoku 港北 Wards of Yokohama. (The latest status of the disease in Kanagawa can be checked here.) Although the virus is harmless for human consumption of fruits, it will sooner or later make trees weak to death. So far, the trees of our Ume preparation are spared, but I’m on alert now. Fingers crossed for the next year Ume-honey syrup … Now I’m learning how the nature is evolving …

If you find an environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121 〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657

Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Season of Japanese Apricot 1: making Ume Compote

June is rainy in Japan. Warm air normally approaches from the Pacific Ocean, but it is blocked by dry and cooler air of Eurasian Continent somewhere around our archipelago. The meeting point of these gigantic air masses is a weather front which brings us continuous rain. It has a particular Japanese name, Baiu Front 梅雨前線. “Bai 梅” = Japanese apricot (Prunus mume), and “U 雨” = Rain. You may wonder why the weather is called by apricot. Flowering season of Japanese apricot is early spring. June is not, is it? Well, June is time for Japanese apricot to bear ripen fruits. For generations, we Japanese harvest these Japanese apricots and make lots of preserved foods that can help us survive our harsh summer. So, rain in Japanese June is called Baiu 梅雨, the rainy weather when we collect Japanese apricots. It’s important season for us.

You could also be puzzled. “Apricots for preserved food? Does Japanese eat lots of dried apricots for summer?” Er, no. Japanese apricot is VERY sour. We cannot eat them raw. The fruit contains lots of organic acid, including hydrogen cyanide. Unless your stomach is robust enough and the apricot is extremely ripe, it is not at all advisable to eat them raw, or simply dried. We have to process them to neutralize tartness as much as possible before enjoying them. Though, it is their acidity that lets us endure our hot and humid summer, like, cool coke for beach front, you know? There are many ways to defuse acids for apricots. This week I tell you one way to make compote of Japanese apricot. Sure, it takes time, but the end result is sweet seasonal dessert we can enjoy for just a brief period of a year. 😄 Oh, by the way, Chinese character for Japanese apricot “梅” is read Ume if it is not combined with another word such as “rain 雨.” So, if you visit Japanese greengrocers, search for Ume, not Bai.

It’s possible to make compote from ripened Ume, but the best result is from green immature ones. (You’ll see the reason soon.) When you harvest or purchase Japanese apricots for this recipe, find these in Late May to early June. I show you how-to in photos.

First, wash them in running water and soak them for about 2-3 hours in cold still water. Mine is harvested from organically grown Ume in our garden. They have lots of scars, but I find them fairly OK. And it is very rare to find worms inside fruit. I guess it’s because of their extreme acidity. 😈

Meanwhile, prepare a bundle of 5-6 bamboo skewers with rubber band.

After soaking, dry apricots with clean clothes, and 

Remove stems with a toothpick or bamboo skewer (we have to do it gently!),

like this.

Next, perforate the entire fruits with the bundle of skewers, to make “detox” easier.

Poked Ume fruits

Place them in a stainless or enameled pan, cover with just enough water, and put it over a VERY weak fire.

Eventually, the inside wall of the pan begins to have tiny bubbles (of course). At this stage, turn off the heat, and let it cool “as is” for one day.

Next day, change the water in a pan without moving out the fruit. This is to preserve the skins of fruits unbroken. I found this much of water pressure, in this photo, from the tap is too strong. Please be careful.

Put the pan with replaced water over a VERY weak fire, and repeat the same process for 3 days: one operation a day. When you sip the water and it is not bitter, the detox is done. You see? If the fruits are ripe their skins can be broken easily in this process.

On the 4^th day, replace water, and cover the fruit in new water with a paper towel.

Next, add crystal sugars over the paper towel. The amount is 70% of the uncooked weight of Ume fruit.

Return the pan over VERY (again) weak fire. NEVER boil it! The sugar will eventually melt like this. Just be patient.

Ume compote, for Naomi’s 2019. Gingerly take them out from the pan and refrigerate in a tapper ware. It can last at least for one month.

The syrup after the cooking can be boiled down with strong fire to ½, like

this. We can use them with pancakes, ice cream, etc. It can also be used for braised pork. For 1Kg of boneless pork lib, add 100cc of this syrup + 100cc of soy sauce + 500cc of H2O + one piece of ginger, and cook the pot for about half an hour. Cool it, and the supper is ready. It’s easy, and De-li-ci-ous!

The syrup can be stored in a refrig for about 3 months (or more). Cooking this compote now becomes a ritual for me every June. If you have some green Ume fruit, try it. Next week, I tell you another recipes with Japanese apricots. These days, I’m very busy to process the fruits. Time is their essence!

Dessert for June.
 Admitting some have teared skin, that’s that.
 The dish is mouthwatering, trust me.

If you find an environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121 〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657

Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

Roaming Bear: Wild animals near us

In May 2019, there was an alert issued by the Prefectural Office for Yadoriki Water Source Forest やどりき水源林. It was about a bear. On May 10, 2019, it was sighted feces of an Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and cedar trees whose barks where stripped probably by the same species, with scratches and bites. Photos were circulated among Kanagawa Forest Instructors. One photo was for a denuded cypress tree with vivid scars. Another was poops, gigantic ones, which were typical of bears. The incident was recorded very near to the admin office of Yadoriki Water Source Forest. “Come to think of it, there was a sighting of a cub in Ameyama Pass 雨山峠 last fall.” “Yes, yes.” “There is another cedar, withered due to peel-off by a bear in Ushirozawa Stream 後沢 near a warehouse.” “Indeed …” Senior instructors emailed us a notice “Please be careful. Carry precautionary bear bells in order to avoid unfortunate encounter.” Certainly. So, we are now ringing bells when we enter Yadoriki Forest. It’s, I would say, noisy. Yeah, that’s the point of bear bells. But how about bird-watching in Yadoriki? The sounds of bells disperse birds whose chirping could normally be heard.

Ring, ring, ring …

2 weeks later, when we did thinning of cypresses in Yadoriki Forest, we met another large denuding of two trees by a bear. According to my seniors, those scars showed the bear “hugged” the tree and bit off the barks in order to lick molasses. “Look. This upper part has its tooth mark, and lower than these is its scratches.” “You know, now, the season of acorns has long gone. They are hungry.” Hmmmmmm. I’ve found this site of a professional photographer pondering relations between bark stripping by bears and health of afforested places. He hypothesizes bears are good at finding trees of increased circulation in sugary syrup. A tree does so when it’s not in a good health, like we crave for junk food when we’re exhausted ... So, when bears denude trees here and there in a forest, it could be a sort of indicator about the situation of trees, he says … Yeah. We have to admit we’re late in thinning for a healthy afforested forest. Congestion could make each cypress weaker than otherwise. Bears can smell the “blood” due to our neglect … Meanwhile, we hear many news about encounters between humans and wild animals. In Yamaguchi Prefecture 山口県, near Hiroshima, bears come to congested town nowadays (news from here). One evening late May this year in Iwakuni City 岩国市, a lady came home and found an adult bear of 1 m tall tried to open the door of her front entrance. (Yap, the city is where the US Marine stations.) Woooooooooooow. Something is happening in Japanese forests. I myself feel more close-encounters with wild animals these days, comparing with my kid-days decades ago … Or, is it simply because of my ignorance?

It’s a bite, I guess.

Scratches.
 I think s/he was so excited to have syrup and
 attacked the tree with strong claws intensely.

In Yadoriki, one day, we found a drowning Japanese field mouse (Apodemus speciosus) in a toilet. Oh dear … poor guy (?). One thing for sure is, we humans have entered deep in nature and made marks of our existence, like modern toilets. From animals’ point of view, they lived there for centuries, and we are new-comers disrupting their lives. One morning that Yadoriki’s toilet became a shelter for a horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum). When we found it, we were quite excited. “Wow, what is it?” “It’s large!” “Camera, camera, camera!” The animal must have slept deep, but was got up by commotion below. It bent backwards as much as possible (“Wow, how flexible!”) and opened its mouth many times. (“Cute!”) We could not hear any screech, but the animal must have emitted human-inaudible ultrasound, saying “Hey, I’m sleeping! What are you guys doing there? What time you think is it now!?” Oh so self-centered humans.

Oh so poor mouse …

The bat. It really looked cute …

One spring day, I had a chance to enter deep in Yadoriki Forest to the direction of a ridge way from Yadoriki Community 寄 to Mt. Nabewari 鍋割山 (ASL 1272.4m). On our way, about ASL 800m point, there is a relatively horizontal space that has two wallows. It’s very strange to find such thing away from the valley … The place is strangely flat after very steep climbing, and has a sort of peculiar atmosphere. We were looking for colonies of wild Calanthe discolor our senior forest instructors found 2 years ago, and crisscrossing the space. The smell of animal is intense although we cannot see any large moving creature. Because of this smell, or not, I could feel indications of mammals filling the space. Perhaps, they were watching us meandering in their domain. “Huh, that rude two-legged creatures searching something in our bathroom!” The place is in less than one hour climb from the forestry road. It’s amazing to find such wild realm so near from human places. It would just be we are too arrogant and ignorant not to be conscious of our neighbor next door in a forest … So sorry for our cluelessness.

A wallow.
 Though there was no water then, the soil was still wet.

A footprint of deer? Serow? Boar?

This is what we were looking for.

Then, the other day, when we did our normal forestry activities in Niiharu, an animal jumped out in front of us, and ran up high on a tree next to the trekking road. “What!?” “What is it?” “Cat?” We took a photo and did a research. We concluded it was a masked palm civet (Paguma larvata). The species is good at climbing up trees, and so it jumped around the trees in Niiharu. Japanese have not found fossils for Masked palm civets in our territory. Also, the spread of this animal is not continuous in the archipelago. On the other hand, their Mitochondria DNA is identical with 2 groups of civet native to Taiwan. Ministry of Environment considers they are probably foreign species came to Japan relatively recently. One theory says they were brought in during the 19^th century in order to harvest fur. The City of Yokohama recognizes several damages they can cause for houses and farms. Mountain of their poops in a garret with horrible smells. Bitten fruits scattered around in a commercial orchard. … Here is another vista of our naïveté with wild animals. They are always very near from us. Oh, yeah.

Niiharu’s masked palm civet

If you find an environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121 〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657

Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/

How Many Greens for Forests in early summer?

From late May to June, it is the time in Kanagawa Prefecture when forests have the most intricate variety of greens. One day, my senior forest instructor told me, “You see? In Japanese words, there are lots of varieties to express color green. You’d better look for the list.” So I did, and found this web site for 79 Japanese words for the color. Wow. (They show English translation for explaining colors.) Yamaaizuri 山藍摺; bluish green with a hint of grey obtainable when we dye unbleached fabric with Mercurialis leiocarpa. Shikocha 市紅茶; deep and highly cray-tinted green. Wasabi-iro 山葵色; color of freshly grated wasabi. Tonocha 殿茶 or 沈香茶; bluish green with grey tone. Hanamoegi 花萌葱; strong green of young Japanese leeks. Shinpeki 深碧; color of green jasper. On, and on, and on, and on …

Infinite variety of greens in
 Yadoriki Water Source Forest やどりき水源林 in May

Many people love this time of the year with mesmerizing combination of green for forests. Can we name each of these by 79 words? I don’t know. Forests are more like gradation from one spectrum to another … Beautiful they are …

Niiharu Citizen Forest 新治市民の森 in the middle of May.
 How many greens can we count?

Currently, I’m also drying leaves of chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata) for herbal tea. Recipe is simple. Pick leaves of the plant growing in non-contaminated area. Wash them softly, and dry them in shade. When they are fresh, its leaves have chameleon like variety of greens … how will they turn out when they become tea leaves?

Drying leaves of chameleon plant for herbal tea.

Oh, by the way, now organizing process is in full-swing for volunteers of 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. The committee building recommends everybody to bring “drinks by Coca Cola, the Worldwide Partner for 2020 Games.” Yap, of course. One of the popular drink from Coke Japan is Sokenbicha 爽健美茶 whose main ingredient is herbal tea of Chameleon plant. If you visit Tokyo next year, please try it. They of course sell them in the venues for 2020 Games. 😊 The taste of Chameleon plant tea is very soft and smooth …  Its color is Shikocha 市紅茶; deep and highly cray-tinted green. 😄

Sokenbicha

If you find an environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center 神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121 〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657

Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/