Japan in a Glass

In a hotel room overlooking the 18^th hole of the St Andrews Old Course, at the stroke of midnight on Hogmanay 2010 my girlfriend and I raised our glasses and so brought to an end a journey that had begun a year and a half earlier in Hiroshima.

Ordinarily you’d see in the New Year with some whisky or champagne but this year was different; for that we had a sushi chef named Nobu to thank. His restaurant near the Peace Park in the infamous southern city of Japan came highly recommended. We’d been told that the food was superb and the proprietor was a friendly sort who spoke English. We’d been undersold on both counts as the sushi and Nobu’s company exceeded our already lofty expectations. He had lived and worked in California and this was reflected in the fusion style of the food. It was, quite simply, sensational and local flavour came courtesy of the native conger eel. As good as it was, memories of the sushi weren't all that preoccupied us. As the bells chimed, we were excited about the drink in our glasses: a sweet plum liquer called Umeshu, made by our own fair hands and the product of many months of effort and patience. We were finally about to taste our homemade batch for the first time.

These days we expect and demand food from all over the world as de rigeur. I live in Glasgow but meals of indigenous origin tend not to make up a large part of my diet (insert your own deep fried Mars Bar joke here if you must). I’m grateful for that as in a regular week I can expect to digest food and drink that originated in India, Italy, Holland, Korea, Thailand, America and many other places besides. It’s great that once exotic, rare and often perplexing foods are now so accessible yet no matter how small the culinary world gets and no matter how experimental our domestic palettes get, there’s always something new and exciting to be discovered in the food and drink of a foreign land.

Like most people, my own tastes have been broadened by the places I’ve been. I remember having my mind blown by pear cider and cloudberry jam in Stockholm before these became widely available over here. When asked by a barman what type of lager I’d prefer I'd always seek out the Staropramon or Krusovice after acquiring a taste for them in Prague. I’d never had calzone before I visited Verona but now it’s my default option in any Italian restaurant. Travel offers such a great chance to revise your opinions about the produce of your homeland; the cliché about Scots abroad craving Irn-Bru rings true but perhaps the most astonishing discovery I’ve made was finding out that Tennent’s Super is the drink of choice among the hipsters and glitterati in the style bars of Milan. It was prettily packaged and creatively marketed but I doubt it would have been as popular had the Milanese been aware that in its origin country it’s drunk primarily by alcoholics and the homeless.

However, and I’m sure I’m not alone here, whilst I’d eaten in Japanese restaurants nothing could have prepared me for the gastronomic revelations of my first trip to The Land of the Rising Sun. Drinking miso soup and trying to grapple with unidentified vegetables at breakfast in a smart hotel offered the first awakening for my western tastebuds. When I spotted flaming chicken hearts on the menu at a restaurant on our first night in Tokyo the tone was set for the best few eating weeks of my life. More than any other journey before, my culinary discoveries in Japan were to stay with me on my return home. There’s always joy in the extraordinary and a 6am breakfast of freshly caught fish at the famous Tsukiji seafood market was a real highlight. Even the seemingly mundane had the potential to delight. I was rarely without a packet of the chocolate covered biscuit sticks called Pocky after first buying them at Kyoto train station. I brought some home with me and gave them to a chosen few; given the addictive nature of the snack I thought it would be cruel to get people started on them without a readily available British supply. In the end I needn’t have worried as Pocky soon became available in the UK as Mikado.

For my girlfriend, Japan could keep its Pocky, its flaming chicken hearts and its seafood. For her nothing could come close to Umeshu in her affections. She isn’t a big drinker, despite the fact that she is currently working her way through a stash of silky smooth Lithuanian vodka bought on a trip to Vilnius, but Umeshu was the tipple she’d been waiting for all her life. Luckily enough, Nobu was something of an authority on the sweet plummy elixir and as I ordered another Yebisu beer he directed Laura towards the Umeshu Rokku (on the rocks) and the rest is history. Some might say it’s a bit of a girl's drink but I like an Old Fashioned or a Rusty Nail as much as the next boozebag and I must admit it is pretty awesome. It’s really sweet, not too potent (about 15% abv) and fairly viscous which is why it’s best served on ice. Its versatility means it can be used in cocktails, in soda water or tonic or even be mixed with hot green tea in the winter. As for us, we were more than happy with our Umeshu Rokku. Our enthusiasm pleased Nobu who went on to tell us how easy it was to make yourself and how to concoct all sorts of variations. With us being Scottish he took delight in describing how he preferred to make it with scotch as opposed to the traditional sochu or sake. After a couple more glasses and some gentle persuasion from our generous host it was decided that we would attempt our own batch.

A month later, with the instruction we’d received from Nobu and a little online research, we were ready to put our moonshine masterplan into action. The basics couldn’t be simpler: soaking unripe ume plums in sugar and liquor. Having bought a couple of preserving jars on eBay we hit something of a brick wall: where were we going to get ume from? Ume are green Japanese plums, similar to apricots. Their distinctive flower (plum blossom) is commonly depicted in East Asian painting but try as we might we couldn’t source the real thing for love nor money. A compromise had to be made. The closest we could get was unripe yellow plums so we bought them and hoped for the best. Next we washed them, then gently removed their stems. Ideally, a bamboo stick should be used for this but we didn’t have one handy so improvised using tweezers. Then we dried and placed them in separate jars before covering them in sugar followed by Jim Beam in one jar and vodka in the other. The jars were then sealed and placed in a cool dark place (my hall cupboard) and the waiting game began.

Initially, nothing much seemed to happen. Then some of the plums began to rise and over time they changed colour from green to squidgy brown while the liquid became more syrupy as the sugar dissolved. It was a fascinating process and we checked on our precious jars more often than was strictly necessary over the subsequent months. It should be ready for quaffing after three but it's best left for at least a year. We decided not to bow to our impatience and with some difficulty opted for the latter option.

As we watched the fireworks from our hotel room in St Andrews with a little taste of Japan in our glasses I knew we’d made the right choice. It was better than we’d dared hope and we enjoyed the fruits of our labour with friends and family in the days that followed. Our bottles soon ran dry and as they did so I like to think that somewhere in Hiroshima old Nobu was kicking back with a smile on his face and a nice big glass of his scotch based Umeshu. Kampai.

Simple Umeshu recipe:

Ingredients:

1lb green plums (preferably Japanese ume)
3/4lb raw sugar
1L alcoholic spirit of your choice

Preparation:

Wash plums and remove the stems. Dry with clean towel. Place plums in a large glass jar, put sugar over them and pour over alcohol. Seal the jar and store it in a dark, cool, and dry place. Umeshu will be ready for drinking in a couple of months but best to let it mature at least one year.

Written by Chris Cruickshank.

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A Jamai Writes

This is the much awaited final article in a three part serial - Fergus Murray writes about his wedding ceremony in Kolkata, India.


The Wedding Day


I tried to find out more about the ceremony in advance but nobody handy knew much about it; we were having a Vedic wedding, said to be less patriarchal and over-the-top than the traditional brahmin-influenced ceremony. P's oldest jethima gave us a wedding scriptbook from a previous ceremony and almost all other possible preparations were in place at last. I got to spend most of the day relaxing, writing up my experiences and sorting through photos. Eventually we set out, dispersing between several cars which took close to an hour to crawl through the jam-packed traffic to the club. I managed to greet a few people on my way to the front row where I settled with my parents to wait for the bride to arrive. After an afternoon being made up and bejewelled by a beautician, P was having awful luck in the traffic and I started getting a little anxious sitting there with no news. When she finally emerged she looked, as I expected, absolutely stunning.

The ceremony began on a round podium criss-crossed with marigolds. I mounted from one side where I was met by the mother of the bride bearing the same ceremonial tray from my first day in Kolkata. She waved the arati in a motion of blessing and daubed my forehead with sindoor. P joined me on the podium and we both solemnly promised to adore each other. At that point the scriptbook included a glorious direction:

(The bride and bridegroom adore each other.)

To my mind, this beats even the immortal

(Exit stage left, pursued by a bear.)

We exchanged garlands - I placed mine over her, she placed hers over me, and we repeated the movements off and on. At the end I had no idea which of the matching garlands I ended up with. I figured this was symbolic of the give-and-take of marriage and the difficulty of separating and joining what was once two people.

The entire ceremony had an easy, meditative musicality to it. After the vows, a purohit sang a mantra, accompanied by a three-piece band next to the dais - tabla, sitar and flute. We placed our hands together and repeated the mantra; I realised then that I should have been spending time brushing up on my Sanskrit pronunciation. Thankfully, I wasn't miked up and everything was explained in English. After this we moved to the dais where we were joined by both sets of parents. Hers gave her to me, and in turn mine gave me to her.

The next stage involved drinking holy - and dangerously contaminated – water from the Ganges; I was vehemently warned to not actually drink it and my mother-in-law was nervous when I pretended to swallow a little too convincingly. Then came the first conspicuously vegan-unfriendly part where I received three trays of curd (for mildness), honey (for sweetness) and ghee (for prosperity). I tasted each individually, then carefully mixed them together and offered some to the rest of the group by flicking it messily in four directions and thrice straight up in the air).

We started a fire by placing sticks of sandalwood into a brazier at centre-stage and punctuated the purohit's mantra by adding more wood. The fire - 'voice of all the gods' – was a witness to the ceremony along with the assembled hundreds. Next we brought the fire to blaze by using special long-handled spoons to drip bowlfuls of ghee into the fire. Our parents join us for some of this part, throwing handfuls of dried flowers. Then P's brother joined us with a plate of tasty-looking puffed rice which also, disappointingly, went into the fire.
Next was the Tying of the Sacred Knot; I wasn't wearing a scarf so our oldest jetima took my brother's and draped it around the two of us. We remained physically attached for several hours in a symbolic attachment of life. My brother wasn't getting that scarf back; we were finally and officially married. To mark the fact, the priest cut a line of sindoor on a specially-prepared mirror and I poured it along the parting in P's hair. There was a rather unsavoury origin to this marking: when a tribe was defeated in battle the conquerors marked their chosen women with blood to say 'this one is mine'. All that remained was the Seven Steps - seven lessons given by the groom to the bride as instructed by the purohit: nourishment, success, loyalty, 'the source of Bliss', the good of all creatures, prosperity and finally a guide on the path of illumination.


The Reception


On the day of our reception I woke up feeling rotten. My stomach was churning and I assumed the culprit was all the creamy food. It quickly became clear that I wasn't the only one suffering - my brother and father-in-law were both struck down by the same debilitating sickness. I was terrified that the thousand reception guests would be greeted by apologetic womenfolk. I dosed myself with electrolytes, anti-diarrhoea meds and antibiotics and finally set off shakily with P, leaving the rest of the ill family members at home.

We arrived at an enormous Tea Garden where we were led through the packed crowd to a brightly-lit stage crowned by two outsized thrones. The reception began with crowds trooping onto the stage in an orderly queue as we received a dizzying quantity of blessings and presents. Everyone knew I was sick so I was spared standing up for each party of people. My electrolyte-laden drinks and periodic visits from bouncy friends kept me from passing out or going insane. At the end of the evening we managed to sit and chat with friends while everyone enjoyed the excellent food. Unfortunately for me I was prescribed a simple diet of rice and potatoes with lime. Waiters made the rounds with mugs of hot coffee on little trays but alcohol was only available at a bar hidden inside the club. I went to my bed gratefully that night.

Much of the next day was spent working through the enormous metal trunk stuffed with wedding presents. It quickly became clear that we were going to have to leave most of our stuff behind and we comforted ourselves with yet another delicious feast, this time of southern Indian food; thankfully I'd recovered enough to eat my heart out. In the evening we attended a small party spread over two large roof terraces, one of which was carpeted with grass, the other with not one but two waterfalls, each around thirty feet high by forty feet long. It was an amazing place to spend our last night; we were leaving for Darjeeling the next day and our many guests would scatter themselves to the rest of the globe. Our goodbyes were said with reluctance and great affection.

To Darjeeling

We flew out at mid-day. It's always interesting to see a city and its surroundings from above and I was a little surprised by all the lakes, woods and green fields outside Kolkata. The city itself was fairly green but extremely dusty so I wasn't ready for such lush plant life. There were wonderfully clear views of the meandering rivers below, attested by the shape and vegetation of the landscape. Eventually the Himalayas leapt into view, announced in English by a member of the cabin crew. Shortly afterwards we began our descent towards Bagdogra, the closest airport to Darjeeling.

We wanted to ride the Toy Train all the way to Darjeeling but as it would take a good eight hours, runs very infrequently and tends to get delayed somewhere along the line, my new father-in-law insisted we drive. To this end we were picked up at the airport by a Nepali man with no English to speak of and not much Bengali so P spoke to him in broken Hindi. We were staying in the Barnesbeg tea garden, halfway down the mountain on the other side of Darjeeling, and we descended rapidly down winding, ever-more-potholed roads as the sun set, the Kanchenjanga massif catching its last pink rays.

The drive was much more pleasant than we had ever imagined. Even on the main road the air was breathable, a tremendous relief after the stuffy fumes of Kolkata. We passed colourful temples and villages as the distant mountains loomed slowly larger. An hour or so into the drive we passed into woodlands and I saw my first wild monkeys. All the way up the hill, helpful signs provided snappy slogans encouraging people to slow down, honk their horn at every turn and be responsible drivers. These were mostly in English, although sometimes their grammar was sacrificed for added pithiness. The bungalow we were staying in looked exactly like a fine old English country house apart from the pictures of Krishna and statues of Ganesh. I loved it.

We were welcomed in with a wood fire in the hearth, delicious tea from the plantation, alcoholic drinks and a very fine Indian meal; our hosts were originally from Coorg so I had the opportunity to try a wide range of foods I'd never heard of in Kolkata, as well as a powerful and aromatic coffee mixed with a little chicory. At night we went outside for some fresh air and I saw the clearest night sky I've ever seen in my life. There just aren't that many stars in Britain; I've spent a lot of time in the English countryside, far away from light pollution and city fumes, but this was something else. It was like the sky was celebrating our marriage. It made me come to a new appreciation of why the ancients named so many constellations.

See Fergus' full profile here.

A Jamai Writes

This is the second article in a three part serial - Fergus Murray writes about his wedding celebrations and the lead up to an Indian ceremony.


The Botanics

After our trip to the zoo we headed out for the Royal Botanical Gardens, believing this would be a good chance to get away from so many people and relax. The trouble was that we'd taken a yellow cab there. We should have made sure he knew where he was going before we set off; when we realised he was driving under rather than over the Howrah bridge we asked him for directions and he did a swift u-turn. There we sat in traffic for forty-five minutes in dusty, near-static, ever-honking traffic. Thankfully the gardens were the perfect place to unwind in the lush, peaceful quiet. We'd been getting quite stressed before arriving and as soon as we stepped into the green silence it felt like a rattling fog had been lifted. We sauntered past the lotus pond, gazed at the shafts of sunlight beaming through the trees, and made our way to the Great Banyan Tree. The banyan was truly beautiful although there is the question of whether it could really be considered a tree. Banyans send down aerial roots - proproots - which given time and food become tree-trunks themselves and send down their own proproots. This one tree was more than two and a half centuries old and had over 2,800 proproots enclosed in a perimeter almost half a kilometre around. The original main trunk was destroyed a century ago by storms and fungus but the forest of offshoots looked like some kind of elven paradise.

More Partying

The next night's party was where it really kicked off. Spectacularly posh, it was held at a mansion with a goldfish pond under the stairs, an ornamental waterfall in the garden, and semi-live music played throughout the night in the cavernous front room. The house was owned by one of the directors of the company in charge of Kolkata's electricity supply, the father of one of P's oldest friends, and I was relieved when he announced that our wedding was only one of four events being celebrated that night. One of his daughters had a new baby son, another was in India for a rare visit and his niece - almost as close as a daughter - was getting married next month. This took the pressure off us somewhat.

I was introduced to what seemed like a dozen or so middle-aged Indian couples in quick succession, while most of our white folk friends were huddle in a corner making tentative steps towards mingling. Later, we settled down to a delicious meal in the fairy-light-strewn garden next to an image Ganesh in the waterfall. Family servants distributed alcoholic drinks and tasty little spiced babycorncobs, chicken bits and fish on sticks and soon everyone was loosened up and less in awe of their surroundings. My brother struck up an enthusiastic conversation with a fellow animator, a white-haired Indian living in Amsterdam, while I debated astronomy with Janet, Rebecca and an Indian whose name I didn't catch. Orion's sword, he said, points south, but nobody was quite sure whether he meant the bow or the dagger hanging from his belt. We collectively puzzled over whether it's really possible for part of a constellation to always point in the same direction and what effect geographical location has on the orientation of things in the sky. To a European, the moon looks sideways in India. We were sorry to have to leave so early – there were more celebrations planned for the next morning.

Mehendi

The next day's events were taking place at the in-laws' spare flat, used at weekends and for parties, which had a roof terrace and an amazing view over a golf course. My brother and our friends were staying there and were a little dismayed to be woken so early.

All the girls had mehendi done apart from our actress friend who'd spent too much time getting married in her films to fancy going through it again. Intricate patterns were picked out in chocolatey henna and P's hands were completely covered. The designs concealed my name transliterated as closely as possible into Bengali, which made it something like 'P'hargaash'. I was tasked with picking it out among the flowers and curlicues. The henna stayed on for a couple of hours, periodically refreshed with sugary lemon juice, after which it flaked off to leave the skin dyed a reddish-orange. The depth of colour in the bride's mehendi reflected the depth of her husband's love and it looked suitably deep and rich to me. I eventually caved in and got a little mehendi myself - a small om on the palm of my hand. After this was the dancing; a troupe of young women and men performed for us with a star turn from a highly talented nine-year old who really gave it his all. The intensity of his expression and movements were a joy to behold. My brother joined in with the last dance; P said she could see a great future for him in Hindi films. Around this time my parents arrived, straight off the plane from Delhi, looking dazed but happy. The wedding was set for the next day.

See Fergus' full profile here.

A Jamai Writes

This piece is the first in a three part serial - Fergus Murray writes about his time in Kolkata and his approaching marriage to an Indian woman.


Kolkata: First Impressions.

The December night was London-summer warm, the streets wreathed in a thicker smog than Britain has seen in my lifetime, beautiful halos around the streetlights and roads disappearing into haze. We ignored the perennial throng of coolies and tiny insistent beggar-kids, loaded up the two waiting cars and set off into town. As I left the airport and stepped out into the midnight Kolkata mist the air caught in my throat like dry ice. Whether from the shock of the Indian air, humid and heavy with dust and fumes, or from some noxious airport air-freshener, I soon got my breath and my bearings back.

Several things struck me during that first journey. For one, the buildings were unlike anything I've ever seen in Europe or Canada (the only places I have travelled, to date); more ornate than most and strikingly less flat - most had balconies and even those without seldom have flat facades. Right angles weren't taken for granted the way they are in Europe. Scaffolding was made of stung-together bamboo which enveloped the houses in crazy, curving grids. The buildings were at bizarre angles to the airport road, built later and cutting a swathe through many of the existing developments.

A few other things jumped out - quite literally in the form of stray dogs. We slowed down only slightly for a lazy road-block, manned by police who sat warming themselves round a fire in an old oil-barrel. The cars of the city were largely unfamiliar because they were of makes discontinued in the West decades ago. Most notably, the city's cabs are a fleet of old yellow Ambassadors; splendidly grand cars with no suspension to speak of and ricketty windows. Many walls were daubed with writing - almost all in Bengali - on politics, often accompanied by a hammer and sickle. West Bengal has been a communist state for around two decades even though capitalism has crept forth in a big way these last few years. Another thing which was quite alien to a British visitor was the style of driving. Cars forever honked when approaching other vehicles and at first I took this to be a symptom of aggression. This wasn't the case at all. While in Britain the standard message of a horn is 'get the hell out of my way' a Kolkata horn usually just says 'here I am'. Largely, I suspect, to make up for the lack of wing mirrors on the cars. Most of the larger vehicles were painted in bright colours, often with slogans like 'my India is great', and the prominent, curiously redundant request for the driver behind to blow their horn.

The Welcome

I felt very welcomed upon arriving at my in-laws. My fiancee P and I were greeted by the closest thing her Bengali family had to a matriarch and came in to three tremendous, resounding HWAAAWHs on a conch shell. This was a traditional way to begin a ceremony - in this case the boron-kora. She continued by chanting, anointing my forehead with sandalwood and daubing P's red with sindoor, and waving an arati - ceremonial flame - beneath each of our faces.

This was followed by a midnight feast - rice and dal and rotis and torkari: a Bengali banquet to fill the hole left by British Airways' failure to provide the vegan food I had carefully chosen from their extensive drop-down menu. At home I'm a vegan but most of the things that bother me about Britain's heavily-industrialised dairy industry don't apply here; I would also prefer not to turn down all the amazing non-vegan food in Bengal and I know my stomach can take it. I wouldn't eat eggs but then Indian vegetarians generally don't either. After dinner we removed our shoes and were led into the main bedroom where our mini-puja continued at P's father's mini-shrine. There were photographs and icons of religious significance and over our heads matriarch-auntie recited lines of rapid Sanskrit as we stood with our palms pressed before us.

First Day: Wedding Shopping


In the morning we woke early to the caws of Kolkata's ubiquitous crows, wailing in the streets, and the sound of a neighbour's conch. When we finally got out of bed we had a little time to eat breakfast and take in our surroundings now that the sun was blazing - a beautiful second-floor flat adorned with ornaments from around the world. Their balcony with huge potted plants looked out onto the street; the building opposite our bedroom window had a tree growing around its drainpipe and unfamiliar grey-necked crows hopped everywhere.

Once we'd got our bearings we set out to shop for our wedding outfits. Our's was a relatively small Indian wedding and there were only three days of official celebrations planned. The first day involved mehendi and a sangeet - dancing girls, drinks and around a hundred and twenty guests. The second day, the ceremony itself, involved more singing, dancing, feasting and another three hundred people. The reception was the really big event with about eight hundred to a thousand people invited. On either side of this there were parties of various sizes with friends and relatives and amazing Bengali food. The day after the reception was scheduled for a big, semi-official wind-down before escaping for a three-day honeymoon in Darjeeling.

What this all means was that each of us needed three outfits with varying degrees of grandness. P and I would wear Indian dress throughout - three different sarees for her, two kurtas and a sherwani for me and a dhoti for the ceremony. My brother opted for two kurtas and a tailored suit, much cheaper to get made in Bengal than in Britain. We picked these out surprisingly quickly, they were such gorgeous things to wear, and even P's were all chosen by the next day. P teased me for weeks about the dhoti – a sort of giant nappy for men - but it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared.

The Partying Began

Next night's party was thrown by the parents of a guest from the previous night, a delightful and shockingly spry couple in their seventies who I knew only as auntie and uncle. She was a famous beauty in her day; a hit pop song was written for her a few decades back. She cooked amazing food and performed another welcome ceremony largely consisting of me eating rice with uche and sag. Her husband told me about his adventures visiting Antarctica and Africa. His face was lined with eight decades of laughter and storytelling and he ate a different breakfast every day on the principle of choice. This party was in our honour and came in the form of a barbecue in a roof garden with beautiful views out over the city fog. We met many charming Bengalis, a close-knit group of friends of P's parents, and ate far too much delicious food. Barbecued paneer turn out to be so tasty that I vowed to try the same with tofu the next time I got the chance.

The Zoo

One afternoon a couple of days later I headed with my brother to the zoo for perhaps our only chance to see elephants. A man sold us chickpeas at the gate - for the monkeys - but all the animal enclosures had signs saying 'please do not tease or feed wild animals' and the monkeys were kept behind three layers of cage for our protection. Overall the zoo wasn't too badly maintained and apart from the skinniest bunch of bunnies I'd ever seen, the animals didn't seem especially unhappy. Some of the cages were pockmarked and empty as though their inmates had escaped. Others included incongruous cats – there was one in the emu's enclosure waiting for a chance to bring down the bird ten times its size.

Before we left I was stopped by a woman and a small girl with a big grin and a look of wonder on her face. She asked me about my hair and how long it took to grow. Later we were chased by a young boy with a camera who begged us for a photo. We stopped for him and he delighted in showing his friends.

'We were the best exhibits there', my brother said later.

See Fergus' full profile here.