Umeboshi

The leaf dyes the plum red in the barrel; perilla aldehyde is already in there.

One plum buried in the middle so no two bites of the ball are the same.

Catechin bitterness and citric salt. Pour the tea over the rice and stop there.

Mashed to a paste it dresses raw cucumber with no oil and no vinegar needed.

Dropped in hot sake it seasons the glass. Salt, acid, alcohol, nothing else.

Pounded into a sauce, it cuts lean poultry the way lemon does but saltier.

Simmered together, the acid softens the bones and kills the oily aftertaste.

Both smell of benzaldehyde. The plum stone and the nut are the same molecule.

Sour-salt on a berry; the plum's floral note reads as an intensified fruit.

Cocoa butter plus salted sour plum is umeshu ganache, minus the alcohol.