We are all no strangers to umeboshi, in addition to making hot and cold, sweet and sour plum soup, many people are more like to eat it directly as a snack. Don't look at the black and dirty, in fa
We are all no strangers to umeboshi, in addition to making hot and cold, sweet and sour plum soup, many people are more like to eat it directly as a snack. Don't look at the black and dirty, in fact, it is not only a flavor of food and medicine of the same source of Chinese medicine, or a lot of well-known historical stories in the protagonist.
01
Ume history
Ume, also known as the plum, smoked plums, orange plums, plums, plums, spring plums, is the Rosaceae plant plums, dry nearly mature fruit, in all parts of our country are cultivated. To the provinces south of the Yangtze River Basin the most.
Plum in China has a long history of cultivation and consumption, in 1979, Henan Pei Li Gang site was found about 7,000 years ago, the plum core, in 1962, Shanghai, Qingpu County, Songze site was also found about 5,200-5,900 years ago, the wild plum core fragments, written in the Han Dynasty, the classic work of traditional Chinese medicine, "Shennong Materia Medica" is the first to have a plum fruit can be used as medicine. The fruit of the plum was the first to be recorded as an ingredient in medicine.
Many people see the plum will recall "looking at the plum to quench the thirst of" historical allusion, said Cao Cao during the Three Kingdoms on the march, due to the road labor to find a water source of the road, the thirst of the terrible, Cao Cao told the soldiers in front of the piece of plum forest fruit and When he was thirsty, Cao Cao told his soldiers that there was a plum forest in front of them with sour and sweet fruits, which caused everyone to have a physiological reaction of drooling, and insisted on going to the place where there was water.
The story of Cao Cao and the plum is not limited to the classic episode of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (《三国演义》), in which Cao Cao, who was in control of the dynasty before the Battle of Guandu, used a banquet to test Liu Bei's ambitions for world domination.
Cao Cao, who was in control of the dynasty before the Battle of Guandu, used a wine banquet to test Liu Bei's ambition to dominate the world, and was ultimately deceived by Liu Bei's clever words.
02
From Plums to Sour Plum Soup
These two stories have nothing to do with Plums, but they do show that Plums are sweet and sour. It is precisely because of this that the traditional summer drink - sour plum soup - has been passed down for thousands of years, with the plum as the main ingredient.
Sour plum soup is made from umeboshi, hawthorn, tangerine peel, cinnamon, licorice, and rock sugar, which are decocted into a soup to be consumed as tea. The imperial doctors tried their best but Qin Shi Huang's condition is still no improvement, in a pinch Xu Fu thought of the previous cases of loss of appetite cured by ume plums, so they put into research. In the end, after several improvements made sour plum soup, Qin Shi Huang took it really well then rewarded Xu Fu, but also this drink sweet and sour soup named "Xu Gong drink".
The development of the Qing Dynasty, by the imperial kitchen to improve the sour plum soup has become the imperial court drinks, especially by the Emperor Qianlong's favorite. Because it has to remove heat to send cool, ease the pain, expectorant cough, to ward off the epidemic, the thirst and so on, known as the "Qing dynasty palace special treasure imperial plum soup".
Later spread to the people, so the streets and alleys will be everywhere selling plum soup vendors, until today, plum soup is still very popular drink.
03
Practical knowledge of umeboshi
We all know that umeboshi can be used to cook a good tasting umeboshi soup, so in the daily use of the process of how to buy and select the umeboshi it, this knowledge to know!
We all know that you can make good sour plum soup with umeboshi.
?
Ume is the nearly mature fruit of the plum tree, after low-temperature drying stewed to the wrinkled skin, the color blackened into a kind of medicinal herbs ; we usually say that the green plum is also the fruit of the plum tree, except that it does not need to go through the process of concoctions can be eaten, said here in fact, ume and green plums. The first thing you need to do is to get a good deal on the product.
In addition, there is an evergreen tree of the genus Prunus in the family Lobeliaceae, which is also called Prunus, but the Prunus of the family Lobeliaceae was mostly used as a high-quality wood in the past, and the fruit was rarely eaten as a fruit.
? Where to buy the most authentic < /strong>
The dried fruit of the dried fruit class of the plum generally in the supermarket dried fruit area can be bought, this kind of plum can be directly inlet to eat; if it is used to do the sour plum soup is best to go to the herbal store to buy medicine and food with the source of the plum, this kind of plum needs to be soaked in water decoction in order to play the best flavor utility.
? The identification of the choice of umeboshi
First of all, from the appearance of the shape, the authentic umeboshi for the class of round or irregular oblate spherical, while the fake for the oblate or class of round slightly flat. The surface of the genuine plum is extremely wrinkled, while the surface of the fake is relatively flat, wrinkled is not obvious. Secondly, from the color , the genuine brown-black to black, while the fake gray-brown or black-brown. Third from the kernel, the genuine kernel surface has numerous dots, while the fake kernel edge is thicker and has a groove, the surface has no dots. Fourth from the odor to distinguish , the genuine taste extremely acid with a smoky gas, while the fake only a little sour taste, its acidity is far less than the plum.
Seemingly ordinary common umeboshi, the original also has so much interesting knowledge, the temperature is gradually rising hurry up to the sour plum soup arrangement.