Sweet and Strong Like Plum Wine

"Making Umeshu is a simple endeavor requiring just three ingredients: rock sugar, ume and high proof alcohol. Well, four ingredients if you include patience."

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If only learning a second language were as simple as that scene in the 1984 Tom Hanks movie “Splash.” Madison, a mermaid played by Daryl Hannah, spends several uninterrupted hours watching television at an electronics store and as a result becomes fluent in English by day’s end. By that measure I should be speaking Japanese as if it were my heritage language based on the past two years in a row I spent watching “Kohaku Uta Gassen,” Japan’s annual hours-long unlookawayable New Year’s Eve singing competition. But there are few true shortcuts in life and most things worth doing take time and effort. 

When I watch Japanese TV (or any foreign language media for that matter) by my preference, it’s always subbed. Never dubbed. I want to be immersed, if only for a half hour or two, in a language other than my own. “Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories” is one such show. It is a slow-paced, often humorous parable of a drama that centers around a small eatery in Tokyo, its chef-owner and its patrons. As long as the ingredients are on hand, the owner will prepare whatever the customer requests regardless of whether or not it’s on the menu. Each episode focuses on a different customer and a particular Japanese dish as it relates to that particular person. While I can’t say my language acquisition is improving simply from watching, I know my knowledge of Japanese foods and cooking is growing.

I’ve more episodes ahead of me than not and I watch them one at a time stretched out over many weeks. At this rate it will be years before I finish the series but I find I quite like the throw-back glacial pace. It is the antithesis of how I tend to watch television these days: binging and chasing instant gratification. Unexpectedly, one of my favorite things about the show is its opening theme music. Omoide, as sung by Tsunekichi Suzukian and accompanied by acoustic guitar, is a plaintive lullaby that has done more to relax me for the minute or so it plays than the Calm app ever will.

This week I tuned into Season 1, Episode 6: Umeboshi and Umeshu (Sour Plum and Plum Wine). Though technically ume are not plums, ume refers to Japanese plums. This was a fortuitous coincidence. Last June I tried my hand at making plum syrup and plum wine. If you can get the ingredients, both are very simple to make. The plum syrup requires just rock sugar and ume. It only took about 15 minutes to make. When it was ready three weeks later, my family consumed it in less than 72 hours - if that. We variably added it to seltzer water, poured it over ice cubes and used it to flavor the shaved ice we made from an inexpensive kakigori machine I found at a mega Don Quijote. (Don Quijote is kind of like a dollar store x Target collaboration on steroids.) And I can’t prove it but I’m almost positive one of my children consistently swigged obscene amounts directly from the jar.

Making umeshu is a simple endeavor requiring just three ingredients: rock sugar, ume and high proof alcohol. Well, four ingredients if you include patience. After a year spent fermenting in an airtight glass container in the depths of a hallway closet, I popped open the lid and prayed the moonshine* I concocted in my apartment wouldn’t kill us. Happily all of us are alive and the umeshu turned out quite good. Very sweet. Very strong. So before the episode started but after the opening credits rolled, I poured a small glass of plum wine over ice and settled in to watch. (I’m sad to report that I’m still not even remotely close to Japanese fluency despite watching very intently.)

The window to make umeshu is fairly short. In late spring, alongside large glass storage jars, pre-measured plastic bags of unripe green ume begin appearing in supermarkets in my neighborhood. The ume you choose should be firm. The color green you’re looking for is spring itself - like green turquoise gemstones  - or verdant like a glow-up Kermit the Frog! Once they begin to ripen into gorgeous sunset-colored yellows and reds it's too late. Yes, they become more fragrant but they are no good for making wine - so do not leave them on the counter for a week. You’ve got two days. Max. Otherwise prepare to feel great shame as you watch your perfect-for-making-wine ume go to waste … and make ume jam instead.

Click here and here for recipes to make your own umeshu.

The color green you’re looking for is spring itself - like green turquoise gemstones  - or verdant like a glow-up Kermit the Frog!

My DIY umeshu provided me with a tangible and tasty revelation. So often I get frustrated that my creative endeavors, my health goals, relationship growth etc. aren’t happening as quickly as I would like. But just as often I am not actively working on those things either, stuck instead in a rut of worry that it’s too late, too hard or just not meant to be. Meanwhile time is running and passing, passing and running. In the case of the plum wine, only a short initial investment of my time and money resulted in immense satisfaction. I had but to commit to doing it. In creative matters I am trying day by day to heed the warning Langston wrote about.

Lately, I am reminded that though life is short, it truly is a long game. So better to invest our time, effort and energy into that which will yield the results we desire. Decide today to invest in yourself, your loved ones, your community and your interests. And I promise you - maybe not right away - but ultimately the results will be sweet and strong like plum wine.

*Technically umeshu is not moonshine. Wikipedia says moonshine is a high-proof liquor that is usually produced illegally. The name was derived from a tradition of creating the alcohol at night to avoid detection.

A Few Things:

• Happy Pride Month! 🏳️‍🌈 Consider learning more about and supporting the Audre Lorde Project a Brooklyn, New York-based organization for LGBT people of color and the Trevor Project an American nonprofit focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth. 

• To learn more about how to pickle ume and just about everything in your fridge, check out Machiko Tateno’s book:

• One of my favorite pickled food is okra! Who’s with me?

• If you can, check out Everything Everywhere All at Once with the incomparable Michelle Yeoh!

• Occasionally Impervious is newly available on The Sample, a newsletter aggregator that lets you sample other newsletters. Check it out here.

PLEASE TELL ME:

I can belt out the theme songs for Reading Rainbow, Golden Girls and a slew of others (would you expect anything less from a Gen X latchkey kid?) but Midnight Diner is the only contemporary show opening I don’t skip. What television theme songs do you have stuck in your head? Facts of Life anyone? Anyone? Let’s chat about it in the comments section.