The Sloppy Family's Kitchen Garden: A Record of Over-Enthusiastic Failures XVII - Ume Work www Sponsored by Cosmo Life Co., Ltd. & Organic Potting Soil Gaudi

|Around the Day of the Ox| Ume Work www

|The plum tree blooming in my lover's garden, if it bears fruit, I shall do as I please with it.|

The plum tree blooming in my lover's garden, if that flower becomes fruit...

It is often said that in Japan, if you talk about flowers, it used to be plum blossoms, not cherry blossoms. But then, what about the fruit? Am I being a contrarian, or just a simple glutton for wondering that? If it were the Manyo era, I would think it was the Tachibana (mandarin orange), but putting that aside, the poem I quoted above is a rare one that also mentions the fruit, whether the author was trying to be eccentric or, like me, was a 'food-first' person—though that's unlikely. In any case, the reason the modern translation ends abruptly is that interpretations of this part vary. It is generally agreed that the premise of the plum fruit is a metaphor for the maturation of the 'imo' (lover). The part I didn't include above, 'kamo kaku mo semu' (I shall do as I please), is also interpreted in various ways, such as 'let's do as we wish' or 'I will do it one way or another.' Since it is a metaphorical poem derived from a love exchange poem, it is almost certainly a love poem, meaning it's likely about getting married, but the tone of this part differs depending on the interpreter. Some interpret it as a complaint or a delusion about a tragic, unrequited love that won't bear fruit. Others interpret it as a stalling tactic, like a filibuster, in response to pressure from the lover (or her mother) to make things clear: 'Well, regarding that matter, um, it is not currently the right time, shall we say? I would like to consult with you again when the plum fruit has ripened.' As for me, upon my first reading before seeing these interpretations, I had a rather materialistic, 'my way' interpretation.

Whether it's plums, fruit, or my garden, let's limit this to food for now. Has anyone ever felt excited before acquiring a large amount of ingredients? Even if you aren't a food grower, harvester, hunter, or fisherman, haven't you gone through the process of finding marked-down items at a grocery store just before closing, thinking, 'If I buy two, no, three plates, they'll give me a discount on one,' and then 'Okay, I'll take them,' only to display the spoils on the table and think, 'Now, how shall I prepare these?' The excitement of thinking, 'I'll do this and that, and anyway, what shall I do?' while background music plays in your head—it really lifts your spirits. Once you experience that, just hearing the opening song is enough... wait, that's off-track. Returning to the main point, if it's plums, you start expecting things as soon as the flowers bloom. If you're a veteran, can you even smirk from the moment you plant the plum tree? Once the fruit ripens, your dreams expand and your delusions run wild (or, if you're a veteran, you might even have a realistic blueprint that isn't just 'counting chickens before they hatch').

See? If you have experience returning home (or from the garden to the kitchen) with a 'big catch' flag flying, happily worrying about how many dishes you can make, then it's no wonder that when you read this waka poem, you might have a 'my way' misunderstanding like, 'Hmph, I can't wait for it to ripen. Once it does, I'll do whatever I want with it, this way and that.' Won't you—no? Yes, you're right, I'm often told I have a wild imagination. The person who wrote it was a noble Manyo poet (and a scion of the powerful Fujiwara clan). Even though he wrote about the fruit, it's hard to believe he had actual experience harvesting and cooking it himself. If the author were 'unknown,' there might have been a chance (<- still saying it?). Actually, the subject here is unclear. It's not just the interpretation that the scion does what he wants; there's also an interpretation that the person called 'imo' (the lover) is the one who will do as the author wishes. 'You should take good care of it until it ripens. Then, I will do as I please. You, as my servant, will happily obey, won't you? Fufu, I can't wait.' Is she a queen? Hmm, my kids seem more like this (needless to say, no one interpreted it this way. Well, there were those who interpreted it as 'I'll do anything if you promise (to marry me)'). My mother put a lot of work into it. Although, I do have something to say to my mother.

When you search for 'ume work' (ume shigoto), it's strange that 'disgusting' appears in the suggestions. I think more people feel that way, especially since 'careful living' is a huge genre here on Note. Personally, when I hear 'work' attached to it, I get an image of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, pulling out a pocket watch, staring at it, and running around saying, 'Oh dear, oh dear, hurry, hurry!' which is the opposite of careful living. Even limiting it to plums, I think the word 'work' was attached because it felt like, 'Oh no, I harvested so much, and in the middle of the rainy season, I have to do the big job of digging out the stems and drying them—oh, I'm so busy!' What do you think? At any rate, I don't think our plum work will be hated by people who criticize 'conscious' types.

Mother, why in a Tupperware container?

Look, I have no intention of badmouthing Tupperware, but... how should I put this? If we were at some American-style home party, I wouldn't mind at all, but the word 'Ume (work)' carries such a refined, elegant nuance that using a petroleum-derived product feels... well, how should I put it? I'm not saying you have to go old-school and elegant and pickle them in a ceramic jar, but still.

It's heavy. Each plum is firm and heavy, and there are so many of them, plus the salt and the liquid shochu—if you're the one doing it, I'll use a glass jar, okay?

My apologies, please do as you like, Mother.

But the image, you know? Doesn't a 'sparkling' lifestyle image suit glass products better? Though, to be fair, using thin heat-resistant glass as a pickled plum container does feel a bit risky. Is it okay? But the image... does creating a 'sparkling' lifestyle image require physical strength...?

Ah, I have to apologize first. Above, for the sake of appearance, I showed the store-bought plums first. Sorry. The next photo, right above here, is the first harvest from our own trees. This is actually quite interesting. We harvested from two trees, and the varieties are different, so it's natural that they'd be different, but do you see the one big one in the photo above? This is the only one that bore fruit from the 'off-year' plum tree, and it's like... it had sheer determination. It put all its effort into one point. Like, 'This is the only one, but this one, this one, I won't lose to anyone.' Mother laughed while saying, 'Thank you, keep doing your best next year (too?),' as she harvested it.

Of course, to the 'on-year' tree that bloomed so many flowers, I also say, 'Thank you for letting us have such a big harvest (by our standards).' The flowers were so beautiful they made me want to sing, and the fruit was so adorable as it gradually became plump. I personally wanted to see them turn a bit more orange and cute, but we harvested them while they were mostly still green and clear. Apparently, this state is better for plum syrup and plum wine. Huh. And for our plums, we let them ripen for pickled plums—well, we let them 'after-ripen' a bit after harvesting (though they say you shouldn't let them get too soft). Still, they were pickled with the thought, 'I guess they lose to the store-bought Nanko plums, huh?' Nice job, Mother. (However, she has a habit of forgetting to take photos. Where are the process photos, like when the after-ripened plums were dried? It's understandable that there are no photos of the actual Ume work or the pickling process, since metal is strictly forbidden with plums, and she didn't want to show that she used a toothpick instead of a bamboo skewer to remove the stems.)

So, for now, I'm pondering how to utilize the plum vinegar—which is too delicious to be called a mere byproduct—that we can consume first. I like pickling daikon radish or the Japanese ginger that occasionally grows in our garden in plum vinegar. If we get a lot, plum vinegar juice is refreshing and delicious in the summer (though since we use low-salt specifications and pickle them in shochu, it's a bit different from regular juice). I'm at the age where I worry about how to make the most of acid to prevent summer fatigue from the sun (basically, Mother does the cooking, though I'm also at an age where I get completely exhausted). Once the 'Day of the Ox' for drying plums comes, we'll see. Father, why don't you compose a haiku?

I don't want to. Not everyone thinks their youthful proposal memories are bittersweet.

That's what he said. Huh?

Basically, Father is the type who will tell you this and that (I heard it was after watching a classical concert, though). Anyway, I'm going to go dig up my parents' secret story, so I'll wrap this up. Also, a thunderstorm is approaching, so let me put up a lightning rod. While writing that there is a page about plums on the Cosmo Life website that sells organic potting soil Gaudi, I finished it perfectly. Praise me, praise me, praise me.

Below is a bonus note. It's not particularly necessary, but since it feels like it has become a tradition (to me, at least), I'll write it to clear my head since I can't seem to let it go.

• Manyoshu
  You probably don't need an explanation, or rather, if you want to know the details, please go look it up elsewhere. I have to write down where I borrowed the images from. The one I processed and used for the title image is the "[Manjuin-bon] Manyoshu Vol. 20" (held by the Kyoto University Library https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00013506). As I wrote in the caption, the one where I borrowed the entire spread image is the "Manyoshu" (from the Konoe Bunko Collection held by the Kyoto University Library https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00008713).
  

• Manyo Botanical Gardens/Forest Parks/Parks/Paths/Trails
  It seems there are many of these, both large and small, all over the place. If you want to grow Manyo plants, it might be fun to visit one (if you live in Japan, there is almost certainly one nearby, though unfortunately, excluding Okinawa and Hokkaido residents). The Kasuga Taisha Manyo Botanical Garden is the pioneer.

• Nanko Ume
  The plum of Kishu Wakayama, the land of plums. Of course, there are many other famous plums, but this is the variety you'll most likely see at greengrocers that aren't in major plum-producing regions during the season. Or rather, it's a brand fruit that is almost always labeled "Nanko Ume" rather than just "plum." If you're making pickled plums, this is the one, but there are so many other great varieties that I can't even list them all.

• Dassai (Otter Sacrificing Fish)
  This term comes from the "Monthly Ordinances" (a summary of astronomy and calendar-related matters) section of the "Book of Rites," one of the fundamental Confucian classics. It describes the habit of otters lining up the fish they have caught on the riverbank as if offering them in a ritual: "In the first month of spring... the otter sacrifices fish..." Furthermore, because the Tang dynasty poet Li Shangyin used it as his pseudonym (he was a politician, but he chose it as his pen name), it came to describe the act of laying out many reference books for writing poetry (is it good manners, or does it mean the otter has good manners?). It also came to mean quoting extensively. I'm the same, but I suspect most people who know this word know it because of the delicious sake that shares the name, right? Or perhaps the haiku crowd (in addition to Li Shangyin mentioned above, Masaoka Shiki also called himself the Master of Dassai Bookstore; it's even a seasonal word)?

• Counting the skin of a raccoon dog before it's caught / Blueprint
  A proverb that needs no explanation: it's about calculating how much profit you can make from the skin of a raccoon dog you haven't caught yet, and might not even be able to catch. Even if you didn't know it, you'd understand it upon reading it. In our case with plums, you can't count the harvest while the flowers are still blooming and puff out your nostrils thinking about how many days' worth of pickled plums you'll have. Once they've actually fruited, you can draw up a blueprint after the harvest. As for "blueprint," it refers to a feasible plan. It was a photographic technique often used to copy hand-drawn designs (which have been almost entirely replaced by CAD - Computer Aided Design), and from there, it took on connotations of a complete forecast, a master plan, or a future prediction. Can we say that even if the technique is gone, the word remains? I haven't heard it much lately.

• Cow-walk tactics
  Familiar in the National Diet—well, I don't like meetings that become familiar with such things, and it's rude to the cows. It's not a graceful journey in an ox-cart, but rather a tactic of walking slowly to delay a resolution. If I may share my subjective opinion, there are quite a few sneaky tactics out there, aren't there?