Stubbornly unripe stone fruit are common in UK supermarkets, but it turns out they’re just the thing to turn into a classic, Japanese-style ferment
Umeboshi is a puckeringly sour and umami-rich Japanese condiment made with ume, an Asian plum that’s closely related to the apricot. It’s usually made with ripe but firm fruit, which aren’t all that dissimilar to the under-ripe and slightly flavourless apricots and plums found in most UK supermarkets and which make a great British stand-in for ume.
Our global food system is a wondrous thing, but as a Slow Foodist, consultant and food systems thinker, I can’t ignore the benefits of shorter food chains, from lower transport emissions and reduced waste to improved quality and flavour. Of course, food miles are only one piece of the emissions pie, but that doesn’t mean they’re inconsequential, and we ought to consider them alongside other contributory factors such as livestock production and deforestation.
Many fruits such as mangos, bananas and apricots continue to ripen after harvest, so these delicate climacteric fruits are usually picked hard and green, and ripened in climate-controlled rooms filled with natural ethylene gas. It’s an ingenious process, but it can produce floury, tasteless fruit with fewer nutrients.
