Tsukemono

Tsukemono

preserved vegetables, "pickles"

漬物

[Tsukemono mori-awase, a plate with various pickles]

Tsukemono, also called "Japanese pickles," are in fact preserved vegetables, pickled both delicately or strongly, in various ways (for example, pickled in salt, in rice bran, etc.). In the past, before the advent of the refrigerator, pickling was an important way of preserving vegetables and get the necessary vitamins also in winter. In the past, Japanese families did their own pickling, as some farmers still do. But most Japanese now buy their pickles in the supermarket or depachika; in some some areas as Kyoto and Nara, visitors can buy famous local pickles as a souvenir or as an elegant gift (omiyage). Many localities strive to develop and promote their own tsukemono.

There are many ways of making tsukemono, but as none of these involves the use of distilled vinegar or acetic acid, we should in fact call them "preserved vegetables", rather than pickles in the Western sense.

Tsukemono can be fermented, for example when the process involves rice bran, sake lees or koji, but other types made with for example salt or soy sauce are not fermented.

Tsukemono are an important part of the meal in Japan. Rice is always accompanied by tsukemono and miso soup, a fixed unit (ichiju issai, "one soup and one vegetable") of the meal (and in leaner times, often the whole meal). The dish of chazuke ("green-tea-over-rice") is always accompanied by pickles.

Pickles can also be used as a snack (otsumami) with sake, or - in certain areas of Japan - with the afternoon tea. I have my own custom of drinking a cup of green tea in the morning accompanied by a pickled plum!

On menus, such as of the kaiseki cuisine, tsukemono are called "o-)shinko."

Here are the major types of pickling:

• With salt (shiozuke). The easiest and most popular method.
• With soy sauce (shoyuzuke). Mirin is usually added to the soy sauce.
• With miso (misozuke). The miso is usually mixed with sake. This method is used for pickling whole vegetables, such as pumpkin.
• With vinegar (suzuke). Japanese vinegar is low in acidity, so like the other types, this is also more a preserved vegetable than a real pickle.
• With rice bran (nukazuke). Used with salt and chilies. The vegetables are buried in a bed of the rice bran (nukadoko) for a period of several months.
• With sake lees (kasuzuke). Sake lees are mixed with shochu, sugar and salt. This method of pickling takes a very long time.
• With koji (kojizuke). Koji is a mold that is cultivated on rice and that is responsible for the sugarification of the starch in the rice as well as the production of other enzymes. 

Not all tsukemono fit neatly into these categories. The famous senmaizuke from Kyoto consist of slices of turnip (kabu) pickled with salt plus konbu, mirin and chili pepper so that a distinctive umami flavor develops.

There is no limit on the types of vegetables which can be used for pickling. So we find not only Japanese vegetables,  but also Western vegetables. I recently found pickled (whole) onion in a pickles shop in Kyoto, and it was sweetly delicious!

It is nice to visit a depachika or pickle shop just to sniff the aromas from the barrels, crocks and jars filled with all types of tsukemono.

Japanese Food Dictionary