It was November when we reached the countryside of Japan, a unique archipelago whose cuisine is entirely unlike the rest of Asia's, or even the world. Without access to spices, or even the methods being used across the world for hundreds of years.
The Japanese are a strange people, but we felt right at home.
Japanese Pickles
Pictured: Eggplant, Radish, Daikon, Cucumber, and Umeboshi.
Japanese pickles tend to be sweet and intense, and are well matched with rice. There's no shortage of vegetables preserved this way, frequently found refrigerated in sealed packages.
Umeboshi are the best known. These are small ume (Japanese plums) pickled and extremely sour.
Legend has it, in times of famine, the poor would only have rice and umeboshi. And in extreme famine, they would put their umeboshi on top of the rice, and only think about eating it, and then eat the rice, so they might save their umeboshi for the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment