Pickling Plums with Koupen-chan! Ch. 3/4 & 5/6
Note: There is no Ch. 2 yet (I’m denoting these according to the pickling steps listed on sonokosakai) because I haven’t found rurutea’s corresponding art work or they haven’t drawn it. Step 2 involves soaking the ume overnight after removing the stems, drying and salting them. It’s the step before any brining is done (steps 3 and 4).
If you find any plum-related tweets by rurutea that I’ve missed, please send them to me at my twitter! Thank you!
Rurutea’s Original Tweets
Translations
Steps 3/4
C: Wait for the end of the rainy season
Text: This time, summer-dried plums
This image doesn't say umeboshi, it says "doyouboshi suru ume". Just searching “doyouboshi” says it is the summer airing (of clothes), but this doesn't make total sense in this context. It actually means “the summer drying of plums.”
Step 5
C: Drying of Plums
E: Fufu, I lined them up well
A: Alri~ght!* Let's steadily dry them!!
TN: * is my best guess in context. I also changed this from the original translation because “press” didn’t make sense after all…
New word: 梅雨明け (tsuyu-ake)
Tsuyu-ake (梅雨明け) means the end of the rainy season. (Jisho)
梅雨 (tsuyu) by itself means “the rainy season” (Jisho), and 明け (ake) means “end” or “soon after something has ended” when used as a suffix (Jisho).
What is 土用干し (doyouboshi)?
"An important part of the Umeboshi pickling process is to let them dry in the sun during three days around July, it is called the Doyouboshi (土用干し)." (Source: Nihon Ichiban).
Fun fact, the character 干 means “dry” and is used in words such as 干す (hosu) (to dry, desiccate) and 干し (boshi) means “drying, dried.”
As for the rest of the word’s etymology, apparently 土用 (doyou) means “midsummer” (Jisho) and midsummer in Japan seems to fall around the end of July, which matches up with the quote from Nihon Ichiban above (Reference: Japanese Pod 101 Blog). I am basing this on another celebrated day called “doyou no ushi no hi” (土用の丑の日) or “Midsummer Day of the Ox” described by that Japanese Pod 101 link, which seems to vary each year, but generally stays around the end of July. But, let’s not digress.
Steps 3/4: The waiting steps
Steps 3, as described by sonokosakai, instruct us to place the salted plums in our brining container with a weight on top and leave it in a cool, dark area. Step 4 says to check the container after a few days and add more salt and weight as needed if there is no brine present. Sugar can also be added at this stage if sweeter umeboshi are desired. Give the plums a little rotation to distribute the brine evenly, replace the lid and weight, and leave it alone for 4 weeks.
Steps 5/6: Drying the Plums - doyouboshi
During step 4, they're waiting for the end of the rainy season so they can dry the plums in the sun for 3 days after pickling (step 5).
Once the rainy season ends and the plums have pickled for 4 weeks, sonokosakai instructs you to remove the ume from the container and reserve the vinegar. You spread the plums on bamboo mats and baskets (as pictured in rurutea’s illustration!) and dry them in the sun for 3 days, or until the fruit’s surface becomes a little white. The vinegar is also left in the sun along with the plums.
Step 6 is also part of step 5, where the plums are placed back in the vinegar at the end of each drying day. After they are dried and re-stored for 3 days, the plums are stored separately from the vinegar.
