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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to save your production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren vull lah Bah, and

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Speaker 2: today we have an episode for you about zu.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, Was there any particular reason this one was

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Speaker 1: on your mind? Lord?

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Speaker 2: It's another one that's been on the list for a

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Speaker 2: while and a produce item was up in the rotation,

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Speaker 2: And I personally love this stuff. It is definitely one

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Speaker 2: of the ways that you can get me to order

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Speaker 2: anything off of a menu. I'm like, yes, if that

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Speaker 2: has usu in it, I'm interested in tasting it because

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Speaker 2: that is going to be tart and floral and weird,

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Speaker 2: and I'm into it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds right, That sounds right. Ah, I don't. I

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Speaker 1: feel like I've had uzu in cocktails For some reason,

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Speaker 1: I've always thought yuzuo was much just a sweeter thing.

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Speaker 1: I don't know why.

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Speaker 2: A lot of the time it's it's paired with a

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Speaker 2: lot of sugar. So absolutely, that's and I'll talk about

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Speaker 2: it in a minute, But certainly the way that I

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Speaker 2: was introduced to it was through like very sweet Korean

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Speaker 2: tea style preparations.

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Speaker 1: So okay, okay, Well, you can see our other episodes

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Speaker 1: that we've done on different citrus.

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Speaker 2: Fruits, sure, lime, lemon, recently orange.

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Speaker 1: J Yeah, I don't know. I think we've done all

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Speaker 1: of those things weird. I know we really are chicking

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Speaker 1: off some boxes. We are we are, But I guess

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Speaker 1: that brings us to our question, sure zoo, what is it? Well?

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Speaker 2: U Zu is a type of small citrus fruit with

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Speaker 2: tart juice and a bittersweet rind. It looks and tastes

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Speaker 2: like you squashed together a bitter orange and a lemon

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Speaker 2: into a cute, little, roundish package, like a small lemon

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Speaker 2: or lime. It's not usually eaten out of hand, but

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Speaker 2: rather the juice and even more so the rind, are

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Speaker 2: used to season both sweet and savory foods and drinks,

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Speaker 2: or cooked into sweetened preserves, which are themselves often used

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Speaker 2: to prepare hot and cold beverages, or processed into candies

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Speaker 2: and sodas, or used to make condiments like like ponzu sauce.

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Speaker 2: The juice is very acidic to sour and bright, and

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Speaker 2: the rind has this very pleasant citrus floral scent and yeah,

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Speaker 2: bitter sweet taste that's both bright and soft at the

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Speaker 2: same time. It brings It brings a little bit of

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Speaker 2: a sort of a bunch of different citrus fruit qualities

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Speaker 2: to the mix, somewhere between like a piny grapefruit, a grapefruit,

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Speaker 2: We've done that one too, and like a fruity mandarin

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Speaker 2: and like a warm herbal bergama. It just brings, it

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Speaker 2: brings a lot, like a delightful lot for something so small,

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Speaker 2: like uh, like Christian Chenna with or I don't know,

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Speaker 2: like a like like a really excited corky puppy. Oh,

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Speaker 2: you're very tidy, but this is great, a bright spot

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Speaker 2: of joy. Sure, yeah, don eat Christian Jenna with their

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Speaker 2: corky puppies.

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Speaker 1: No, that's not what we're advocating here.

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Speaker 2: Uh, okay, So you zoo is a natural hybrid. It's

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Speaker 2: thought of other kinds of citrus. We're not totally sure,

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Speaker 2: but genetic signs point to the mandarin orange and a

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Speaker 2: popeta pepeta being this category of citrus trees that do

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Speaker 2: not grow tasty fruit, but are still nicely and sometimes

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Speaker 2: used as ornamental plants or as rootstock for other citrus.

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Speaker 2: That rootstock thing is common in fruit trees. Generally you

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Speaker 2: graft like resilient roots onto the type of fruiting branch

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Speaker 2: that you want in order to improve the fruit's chance

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Speaker 2: of survival. User trees are actually used for this, sometimes themselves.

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Speaker 2: The specific Popaeda that researchers think was involved is called

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Speaker 2: the ichang papeta. It's super hardy and has been used

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Speaker 2: to create other citrus hybrids, definitely on purpose more modernly.

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Speaker 2: More on that in the history section.

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Speaker 1: Anyway.

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Speaker 2: User trees are grown to be on the small side,

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Speaker 2: like less than twenty feet tall, that's about six meters.

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Speaker 2: They take fifteen plus years to fruit when they're grown

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Speaker 2: from seed. They can be grafted to make it go

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Speaker 2: a little bit quicker. But yeah, they had these small,

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Speaker 2: pretty leaves and sharp thorns, like a lot of citrus does,

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Speaker 2: and they're evergreen. They will bloom with these wee white flowers,

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Speaker 2: which if pollinated, will develop into a plump like slightly

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Speaker 2: squished sphere. It'll have a thick, pebbled outer rind that's

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Speaker 2: dark green when it's unripe, and will ripe into a

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Speaker 2: bright yellow sometimes almost orangish school bus yellow in color.

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Speaker 2: They're just a couple inches in diameter, maybe five centimeters,

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Speaker 2: like a yellower, bumpier, slightly rounder mandarin orange. Yeah, they

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Speaker 2: ripen in late fall to early winter, and both the

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Speaker 2: green fruit and the ripe fruit are used. The rind

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Speaker 2: contains sacks with a lot of very fragrant oils which

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Speaker 2: give it that color. The oils contain compounds that are

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Speaker 2: strongly citrusy, with some herbal, warm, fruity, fresh and piny

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Speaker 2: notes in there too. Inside that outer rind there is

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Speaker 2: a thin layer of spongy white pith, and then inside

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Speaker 2: that there's the pulp, which are these wee sacs that

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Speaker 2: are just single drop packets of juice themselves in case

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Speaker 2: together in sections, each with their own thin membrane, arranged

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Speaker 2: like a like slices of a three D pie. Not

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Speaker 2: that pies aren't three D, but you get what I mean. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The juice is a pale yellow and very acid tart.

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Speaker 2: They're not as juicy as your average lemon, as they

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Speaker 2: tend to have a lot of seeds mixed in with

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Speaker 2: that pulp. The peel can be used fresh or dried

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Speaker 2: in all kinds of sweet or savory dishes and both

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Speaker 2: hot and cold drinks. The juice can be used fresh

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Speaker 2: or frozen likewise, you know, in hot pots, soups and

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Speaker 2: stews too. Season rice instead of vinegar in a marinade

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Speaker 2: or sauce for seafood or other proteins, to flavor ices

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Speaker 2: or ice creams or custards or candies. You can put

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Speaker 2: it in lemonades and cocktails. You can use it to

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Speaker 2: flavor teas, soft drinks, beers, soju, other beverages. You can

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Speaker 2: use it as a garnish or in condiments. You know, however,

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Speaker 2: how are you citrus?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? People use it all kinds of ways. Oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is.

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Speaker 2: It is pretty rare to find the fruit sold fresh

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Speaker 2: outside of areas where it's grown, which are primarily Japan, Korea,

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Speaker 2: and like subtropical parts of China. If y'all do have

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Speaker 2: experience with using it fresh, please write in Heck, I

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Speaker 2: love citrus. I've never done this before and I'm so

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Speaker 2: curious about it. They are grown a little bit in California,

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Speaker 2: Australia and New Zealand, Southern Europe a couple other places.

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Speaker 2: But you can find that the processed juice and either

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Speaker 2: dried or frozen peel available online or sometimes in like

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Speaker 2: East Asian markets. Yeah, the fruit is also made into

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Speaker 2: marmalade type preserves, you know, with the juice and peel

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Speaker 2: a bit more better than orange marmalade. In Korean cuisine,

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Speaker 2: it's often made a little bit thinner than jam, more

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Speaker 2: more porable, like like honey maybe, and sometimes with the

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Speaker 2: honey in it, intended for mixing into hot water for

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Speaker 2: warm beverage. The Korean term for the fruit is yuja,

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Speaker 2: though the English translation on labeling is often citron. I've

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Speaker 2: also seen yuja marmalade served in cold drinks, like in

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Speaker 2: soju cocktails and then condiments. Yes, as I said, Uzi

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Speaker 2: frequently is the citrus element in ponzu sauce, which is

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Speaker 2: a tart, savory vinegar based sauce often mixed with soy

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Speaker 2: sauce and served as a dip in Japanese cuisine. Also

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Speaker 2: in Japanese cuisine, there is a salty, sour hot chili

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Speaker 2: paste condiment made with yzou zest called yuzu kosho. That

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Speaker 2: one's really powerful and super good. Shout out to my

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Speaker 2: cousin Jess for giving me some one Christmas. I don't

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Speaker 2: think she listens to the podcast, but shout out nonetheless.

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Speaker 2: I've seen the hollowed out like like half rines sometimes

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Speaker 2: used as a serving dish or cup. That sounds really

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Speaker 2: fun I like, yeah, yeah, And the oils are also

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Speaker 2: used in the cosmetics industry to bring like a nice

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Speaker 2: sent to various products, and the whole fruit are used

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Speaker 2: in like like public baths, like hot spring baths in Japan,

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Speaker 2: especially around the winter solstice. Lots more in that.

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Speaker 1: Yes, well, what about the nutrition.

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Speaker 2: Again, you're not really eating these out of hand. I

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Speaker 2: mean citrus. Citrus is good.

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Speaker 1: For you, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, once it's been made into marmalade or is flavoring

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Speaker 2: pastry cream or whatever. You know, that's a little bit

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Speaker 2: of a different thing. I will say that yuzuo has

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Speaker 2: been used and studied for potential medicinal properties. But saber motto.

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Speaker 1: Always. Now, we've got a couple of mottos we need

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Speaker 1: to make all this this is okay. Primary motto, yes,

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Speaker 1: the primary one.

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Speaker 2: That's about how nutrition is complicated, bodies are complicated. Before

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Speaker 2: ingesting a medicinal amount of anything, you should consult a

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Speaker 2: medical professional who is not us.

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Speaker 1: Yes, we should have like subset one or motto. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we'll figure it out, we'll feel well, yeah, we do

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Speaker 1: have some numbers for you. We do.

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Speaker 2: Japan produces the most yzoo, about twenty seven thousand tons

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Speaker 2: a year. France and the US import the most, mostly

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Speaker 2: in juice form. The world record for the largest yuzubath

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Speaker 2: was achieved in twenty twenty two. So there's this chain

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Speaker 2: of public baths called montano U that had been trying

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Speaker 2: to break the record for a decade, and they got

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Speaker 2: locals around Yokohama to donate fruit and they wound up

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Speaker 2: for this record breaking bath with four thousand, five hundred

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Speaker 2: and seven yuzuo that is around one three hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty kilos of fruit or three thousand pounds.

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Speaker 1: Now, people, did people get in this? I hope so?

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Speaker 2: I hope so if not, that is silly.

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Speaker 1: That's a shame. That would be a real shame.

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Speaker 2: I hope people. Corgis everyone and shadow with yeah everyone, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: It sounds lovely. It does.

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Speaker 2: It does also sounds sounding lovely. There are a couple

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Speaker 2: yuzu festivals every year, specifically in Koti Prefecture in Japan,

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Speaker 2: where fifty five percent of the country's usu comes from.

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Speaker 2: Those festivals both happen in late October to November in

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Speaker 2: line with the first harvest of the season. One in

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Speaker 2: Umaji celebrates the first juicing of the season and then

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Speaker 2: one in Kitagala honors this village leader from the mid

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Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds who like really encouraged yzu cultivation and its

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Speaker 2: use as a preservative and a seasoning that could be

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Speaker 2: produced locally as opposed to other things like like rice,

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Speaker 2: vinegar or miso that had to be imported from other areas.

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Speaker 1: That sounds cool, both of those so cool, we do.

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Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, if, oh, if anyone has any experience

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Speaker 2: with any of this, please write in.

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Speaker 1: Oh, please please do. But in the meantime, we have

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Speaker 1: quite a history for you.

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Speaker 2: We do, touching on several of these points in fact,

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Speaker 2: and we are going to get into that as soon

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Speaker 2: as we get back from a quick break forward from

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Speaker 2: our sponsors.

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Speaker 1: And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. Okay. So,

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Speaker 1: historians believe that yu zoo originated in East Asia. Some

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Speaker 1: speculate that it first grew in Korea that made its

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Speaker 1: way to China then over to Japan about a thousand

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Speaker 1: years ago. Others argue that it more likely originated in

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Speaker 1: China near the Yangsee River.

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Speaker 2: Either way, it also arrived in Japan pretty quickly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, And like you said earlier, Lauren, it most

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Speaker 1: likely was the result of cross pollination of the mandarin

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Speaker 1: orange in the echung papeda via insects. A lot of

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Speaker 1: research into this very fascinating. Some speculate that ancient text

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Speaker 1: out of China detailing the cultivation and growth of something

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Speaker 1: called you yu actually refers to uzu. In the two

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Speaker 1: hundreds BCE, a Chinese text describes yuzu as something sweet

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Speaker 1: and sometimes sour, but also makes clear that there was

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Speaker 1: some confusion about what was being called you and that

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Speaker 1: there was at least two fruits going by the name

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Speaker 1: at the time, so still still a little confusion early on.

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Speaker 1: Yep In an eleven eight CE herbal out of China,

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Speaker 1: uzu is called by the name still used for it

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Speaker 1: in China today, So that indicates that they had kind

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Speaker 1: of arrived at what what about zoo at that point?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, The word uzuo is Japanese, though both the Japanese

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Speaker 2: and Korean root from an older Chinese term for the

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Speaker 2: free Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, fun with linguistics. Around thirteen hundred years ago, yuzu

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Speaker 1: was really flourishing in parts of Japan. According to some sources,

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Speaker 1: yuzu was largely cultivated for medicinal purposes at first there,

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Speaker 1: but over time, people started to really like the aromatics

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Speaker 1: of it. They liked how it tasted, so they started

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Speaker 1: using it in other ways, including cooking.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, ponzu sauce is a little tricky to track down

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Speaker 2: the history of but it seems to have developed during

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Speaker 2: the edolp period, like the sixteen to eighteen hundreds when

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Speaker 2: the Dutch had a settlement in Nagasaki. And we think

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Speaker 2: that based on the etymology of panzu, which combines this

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Speaker 2: old Dutch word for punch like the drink pond with

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Speaker 2: a Japanese term for vinegar su sore. More mysteries with etymology.

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Speaker 1: Mysteries with etymology. I love it. Around the same time,

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Speaker 1: the winter solstice tradition of a yuzu bath is believed

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Speaker 1: to have originated. Yes, in the same period with the

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Speaker 1: introduction of the public bath, people believed that usu baths

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Speaker 1: promoted blood circulation and other health benefits. Honestly, they just

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Speaker 1: sound really nice to me. Yep. Yes. And then in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, some employees working at a zoo in

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Speaker 1: Japan noticed some of the capaberas huddled together in warm

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Speaker 1: water while their enclosure was being cleaned, and that gave

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Speaker 1: the people working there the idea to have a usu

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Speaker 1: bath for the animals during the winter. Yes, open to

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Speaker 1: public viewing. Oh yes, yes. It was a popular event,

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Speaker 1: and then other zoos started doing it. Beginning in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: Zoo started sharing videos of this online that racked up

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Speaker 1: millions of views, and of course that struck they did.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for like, give me literally any serotonin.

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Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, capbera is in a uzu bath.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, lovely because and honestly, like capaberras and yuzu both

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Speaker 2: look like sort of like squished spheres a little bit,

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Speaker 2: so like they have this sort of similar shape and

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Speaker 2: like capa beeras are so chill to begin with.

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Speaker 1: Oh that sounds really wonderful.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely and I've definitely seen some like little

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Speaker 2: like cartoons about it on the internet.

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Speaker 1: Anyway. Uh.

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Speaker 2: The aforementioned village leader who encouraged cultivation of yuzu around

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Speaker 2: the mid eighteen hundreds, like probably around eighteen sixty, was

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Speaker 2: in fact a samurai, one naka Oka Shintaro, who later

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Speaker 2: helped overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate.

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Speaker 1: So there you go. Wow, yep, these these episodes go places,

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Speaker 1: They go places. Yes, And speaking of frank In Mayor,

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Speaker 1: an official from the USDA, discovered yuzuo while exploring in

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Speaker 1: China in nineteen fourteen.

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Speaker 2: Discovered in scare quotes, I mean it was already people

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Speaker 2: already knew it was there, but he ran across it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And furthermore, yes, it is that mayor, like the guy

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Speaker 2: that they named the Mayor Lemon after. He was a

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Speaker 2: spotanist who went on these plant collecting expeditions around Asia.

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Speaker 2: That's a separate, separate episode, possibly a separate podcast. Really

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Speaker 2: interesting guy anyway.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well, he called yuzu the Kanzu orange. He

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Speaker 1: sent some seeds of the plant back to the US. However,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty two, it was discovered that this orange

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Speaker 1: was the same as yuzu previously brought into the US

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Speaker 1: by Japanese immigrants for cooking. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yep.

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Speaker 1: That being said, though, wild varieties of yuzu were being

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Speaker 1: discovered in China as late as nineteen thirteen. Wow. Cool, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of them.

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Speaker 2: Ko Chi Prefecture didn't really get into yuzu production again,

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Speaker 2: they are currently they make like over half of the

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Speaker 2: yuzu that Japan produces. They didn't really get into it

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Speaker 2: at all until the cedar logging industry started to decline

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Speaker 2: on their island. In the nineteen sixties, people started cultivating

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Speaker 2: local citrus like the yuzu, and it really took off.

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Speaker 2: A lot of yuzu was originally planted along the decommissioned

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Speaker 2: logging railway land because it was available and extensive, like

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Speaker 2: over two hundred and fifty kilometers of track, the longest

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Speaker 2: in western Japan when it was built in nineteen twenty nine.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, around like kind of right around that is

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Speaker 2: where a lot of the groves still are today. In

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Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies they did further get into like bottling

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Speaker 2: and selling yuzu based product and also agritourism.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and in recent years, yuzuo has seen growing popularity

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Speaker 1: outside of Asian communities where it has long been used.

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Speaker 1: A two thousand and three New York Times article tauted

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Speaker 1: it as a prized ingredient for chefs and they really

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Speaker 1: highlighted the scent loved it. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Around that same time, this three star Michelin restaurant

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Speaker 2: in Spain, l W was super excited about y zoo,

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Speaker 2: giving it further attention, and it was probably cross pollination there.

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Speaker 2: On the New York Times and all this attention. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and in the US it became something of a

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Speaker 1: darling in the burgeoning craft cocktail scene. It is something

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Speaker 1: I have seen a lot in in craft cocktails. Oh, certainly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's tasty.

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Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's good. A lot of cocktails have a

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Speaker 1: good citrus element. U zoo. There you go, here you go. Yes, well,

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Speaker 1: listeners as always, if you have more experience when it

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Speaker 1: comes to use you, if you have recipes, if you

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Speaker 1: have your favorite things, any festivals that we miss.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, if you've been to a Uzu bath, yes,

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Speaker 2: you have a Corgi I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Serotonin's always good. Oh my goodness, yes, please write

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Speaker 1: in yes. But that is what we have to say

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Speaker 1: about Uzu for now. It is.

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Speaker 2: We do already have some listener mail for you, though,

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Speaker 2: when we are going to get into that as soon

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Speaker 2: as we get back from one more quick break for

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Speaker 2: a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,

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Speaker 2: thank you, and we're back with school. He refreshing sour,

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Speaker 2: I have refreshing and both, yeah in a sour way. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: puckery citrus is generally like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and wrote I've been going through a backlog of

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Speaker 1: older episodes and was struck by the Aside and your

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Speaker 1: Salisbury Stake episode about calling Docson's Liberty dogs. The Paw

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Speaker 1: Patrol movie, which came out the following year, introduced a

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Speaker 1: docs and character named Liberty. I think someone was making

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Speaker 1: a very obscure joke and thought you'd enjoy the last

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Speaker 1: I love it. There you go. Yeah, I bet they were.

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Speaker 1: We were just talking about SpongeBob. But a lot of

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Speaker 1: these kids shows there's there's in jokes, djo Oh absolutely, yeah,

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Speaker 1: big fit.

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Speaker 2: I love it every time Pop Patrol or Bluey comes

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Speaker 2: up on this show.

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Speaker 1: I feel like it's a lot.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially since that is not media that either

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Speaker 2: of us have consumed.

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Speaker 1: No, but I enjoy learning about it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Listeners, Yeah, and they're just ubiquitous.

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Speaker 2: So right, Okay, Mark wrote, I'm a Newish listener enjoying

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Speaker 2: your back catalog and your Mustard episode made me think

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Speaker 2: you might be interested in the Northern Italian dish Mustarta.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of like chutney in a rough sense, and

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Speaker 2: it consists of candied fruits, quinces, apples, grapes, cherries, citrus,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. In sweetened mustard flavored syrup. My father is

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Speaker 2: from Amelia, Romagna, and I grew up in Italy and

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Speaker 2: the USA with mustarda around the house, eating it along

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Speaker 2: with boiled meats. But the combo of sharp mustard and

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Speaker 2: sweet fruit seems to really bewilder most people who aren't

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Speaker 2: from northern Italy like that area. Lombardia ven a'tah mustarda

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Speaker 2: di cremona is the easiest kind of fine. In the USA,

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Speaker 2: it's a little more mustardy, with transparent syrup and small

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Speaker 2: whole fruits, but there are others with different textures and

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Speaker 2: balances of sharp to sweet. In general, mustard like we

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Speaker 2: think of it in the US or France is pretty

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Speaker 2: rare in Italy, and in Italian it's called senepe so dijon.

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Speaker 2: Mustard is called senepe de dijon. So the similarity between

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Speaker 2: the words mustarta and mustard might cause a funny surprise

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Speaker 2: for some people. Thank you for your awesome show, and

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Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to someday hearing Annie's D and D

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Speaker 2: gaming podcast.

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Speaker 1: I want to mess. That would be a fun Oh.

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Speaker 2: A wonderful miss Oh it's so chaotic. Oh my goodness,

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Speaker 2: I have had mustarta ooh oh yeah. I think it

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Speaker 2: is part of like a charcoterie situation out at various

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Speaker 2: rest I've had a number of times around Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: It sounds good to me, like I can understand if

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Speaker 1: for people who are accustomed to having it on like

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Speaker 1: sandwiches or like in a very specific way here in

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Speaker 1: the US, that this could sound a little like oh

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Speaker 1: with fruit, with fruit a sweet element, what I know.

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Speaker 2: No, to me, that sounds great, sure, And I do

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Speaker 2: think that that some like yellow mustards, like frenches, are

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Speaker 2: a little like do have like a sweet element.

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Speaker 1: To them any bit?

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Speaker 2: So, so I don't think I mean also, I just

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Speaker 2: I mean as I as I said in our mustard episode,

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Speaker 2: I just really like mustard. Yeah, that's why I chose

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Speaker 2: it as my birthday episode that year, and it was

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Speaker 2: like for your birthday, what do you want to talk about?

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Speaker 2: I was like, mustard, Oh yeah, that's great. And I

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Speaker 2: do also love combinations of sweet with other flavors that

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Speaker 2: but yeah, like we're getting into in the US, but

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Speaker 2: I think are a lot common and other quiz gains.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, I enjoy it too well. Thank you to

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Speaker 1: both of these listeners for writing in if you would

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Speaker 1: like to write to us, you can Our email is

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Speaker 1: hello at savorpod dot com.

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Speaker 2: When we are also on social media, you can find

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Speaker 2: us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at saver pod and

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Speaker 2: we do hope to hear from you. Savor is production

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Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit

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Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 2: your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan

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Speaker 2: Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and

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Speaker 2: we hope that lots more good things are coming your

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Speaker 2: way