🍱 Papaya Pickles

“Papaya Pickles” are made by pickling young papaya fruit in salt, followed by additional pickling in miso paste or soy sauce, and are popular as a type of pickled vegetable that can be made easily at home. These pickles are eaten in Okinawa Prefecture as well as the Amami Region. In additional to being a condiment which always accompanies the dish “chicken rice” known nationwide, the dish is highly versatile and can be served as an accompaniment for tea. Papayas are relatively new to the Amami region, and it is said that they were introduced from Okinawa after the Second World War when the Amami archipelago was under the administration of the United States. The climate of the Amami region, which is warm throughout the year, is well-suited for papaya cultivation, and because of the fruit's strong ability to propagate and ease of cultivation, it spread rapidly and played a role in supporting the region during the period of post-war food shortages. It was against this background that the people of the Amami Region devised many delicious ways to eat papayas, and it is thought that this how “Papaya Pickles” appeared. In both the Amami Region and in Okinawa Prefecture, ripe papayas with yellow skin are often eaten as a fruit, but more often than not, the still-green colored unripe fruit is used as a vegetable.