MealMap #70

Whole stone fruits — a species often called a plum but actually closer to an apricot — harvested as they ripen in early summer and packed in barrels with salt at a fifth of their weight, which draws out a sour brine they soak in for a couple of weeks before being dried in the sun. The result is round, somewhere between smooth and deeply wrinkled, and startlingly salty and sour from citric acid; many are dyed red with purple perilla leaves, and gentler versions are desalted and re-soaked with honey, bonito flakes or kelp. Eaten one at a time with plain rice, tucked into a rice ball or a rice-and-tea bowl, or dropped into congee as the standard folk remedy for a cold. A single one on a bed of white rice in a lunch box is named for the national flag it resembles; samurai carried them against battle fatigue.

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