It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with perilla and Perilla frutescens. (Discuss) Proposed since April 2012.

A green shiso leaf used as receptacle to hold grated wasabi

Shiso /ˈʃiːsəʊ/^[1] is the now common name^[2] for the Japanese culinary herb, seed (spice), or entire annual plant of Perilla frutescens^[3] variety crispa, belonging to the mint family.

The conventional translation "beefsteak plant" is outdated and has fallen into disuse in current media,^[2] though it has not passed into complete obsolesce. The genus name Perilla is sometimes used as a common name^[2] but it is ambiguous, since that term is also inclusive of the wild sesame variety, which is devoid of the distinctive shiso fragrance.

Overview[link]

The crop occurs in both red- (or purple-) leaved and green forms. There are also frilly, ruffled-leaved forms called chirimen-jiso and forms that are red only on top, called katamen-jiso.

The Japanese name shiso (紫蘇^?, シソ) is a loan word from Chinese zisu (zh: 紫苏; pinyin: zǐsū; Wade–Giles: tsu-su), whose first character 「紫(shi, murasaki)」 means "purple".^[4]

So it stands to reason that traditionally in Japan shiso denoted primarily the purple-red form.^[5] In recent years there has been a paradigm shift, with the green becoming the first to come to mind, and the red considered atypical.^[6]

Red shiso[link]

The purple-red type may be known as akajiso (赤ジソ/紅ジソ, "red shiso"^?). The quintessential use is for coloring the pickled plum, or umeboshi. The shiso leaf turns bright red when it reacts with the umezu, the vinegary brine that wells up from the plums after being pickled in their vats.^[4][7] The red pigment is identified as the Perilla anthocyanin, aka shisonin.^[8] The mature red leaves are not very amenable to use as a raw salad leaf. But germinated sprouts me-jiso (芽ジソ^?) been used for years as garnish to accent a Japanese dish such as a plate of sashimi.^[4][9] Also used are the hanaho (花穂, flower cluster^?) or hojiso are sprigs studded with tiny-cupped flowers and forming seeds.^[4] The tiny pellets of buds and seed pods can be scraped off by adroitly using the tips of the chopstick, or by finger and mixed into the soy sauce dip to add the distinct spicy flavor.^[9] The sprouts and flowerheads of the green variety are also used the same way.

Green shiso[link]

Bunches of green shiso leaves packaged in styrofoam trays are now familiar sights in Japanese and Japanese food market in the West. But production in earnest as leafy herb did not begin until the 1960s.^[10]

One anecdote is that around 1961, a certain cooperative or guild of tsuma (ツマ, "garnish"^?) commodities based in Shizuoka Prefecture picked green large leaves of shiso and shipped them out to the Osaka market, gained popularity and ohba (大葉^?) became the trade name for bunches of picked green leaves forever after.^[11]

A dissenting account places its origin in the city of Toyohashi, Aichi, the foremost ohba-producer in the country,^[12] and claims Toyohashi's Greenhouse Horticultural Agricultural Cooperative (豊橋園芸農協^?) experimented with planting ca. 1955, and around 1962 started merchandizing the leaf part as Ohba, and in 1963 organized "cooperative sorting and sales" of the crop (kyōsen kyōhan (共選・共販^?), analogous to cranberry cooperatives in the US). By ca. 1970, they achieved year-round production.^[13]

Culinary use[link]

Japan[link]

A whole leaf of green shiso is often used as a receptacle to hold wasabi (picture top right), or various tsuma (garnishes) and ken (daikon radishes, etc., sliced into fine threads). It seems to have superseded the baran (fake Aspidistra), the tacky serrated sheets of green plastic film that graced the take out sushi boxes in bygone days.

Green leaves

Spaghetti topped with minced shiso garnish

The green leaf can be chopped up and used as herb or condiments for an assortment of cold dishes such as:

• cold noodles (hiyamugi, sōmen)
• cold tofu (known as Hiyayakko)
• tataki and namerō^(ja)

Chopped leaves can used to flavor any number of fillings or batter to be cooked into warm dishes as well. A whole leaf battered only on the obverse side is made into tempura.^[14] Whole leaves are often combined with shrimp or other fried items.

Red leaves

Red leaves are used for making pickled plum (umeboshi) as mentioned, but this is no longer something that done in many households. Red shiso is used to color shiba-zuke^(ja), a type of pickled eggplant (also cucumber, myoga, shiso seeds may be used),^[15] Kyoto specialty.

Seeds

The seed pods or berries of the shiso are also salted and preserved as a sort of spice.^[3] They can be combined with fine slivers of daikon, for instance, to make a simple salad.

One source from the 1960s says that oil expressed from shiso seeds was once used for deep-frying purposes.^[4]

Sprouts

The germinated sprouts (cotyledons)^[16] used as garnish are known as mejiso (芽ジソ^?). Another reference refers to the me-jiso as the moyashi (sprout) of the shiso.^[4]

Any time it is mentioned that shiso "buds" are used. there is reason to suspect this is a mistranslation for "sprouts" since the word me (芽^?) can mean either.^[17]

Though young buds or shoots are not usually used in restaurants, the me-jiso used could be microgreen size.^[18] People engaged in growing their own shiso in planters, will also refer to the plucked seedlings they have thinned as mejiso.^{[19][better source needed]}

Yukari

The name yukari refers to dried and pulverized red-shiso flakes,^[20] and has passed into the common tongue as a generic term,^[21] even though Mishima Foods Co.^(ja) insists it is the proprietary name for its products.^[22] The term yukari-no-iro has signified the color purple since the olden days, based on a poem in the Kokin Wakashū about a murasaki or gromwell blooming in Musashino (old name for Tokyo area).^[23] Moreover, the term Murasaki-no-yukari^(ja) has long been used as an alias for Lady Murasaki's famous romance of the shining prince.

Furikake

Other than the yukari variety, there are a many commercial brand furikake type sprinkle-seasoning product that contain that contain shiso as well. They can be sprinkled on rice or mixed into musubi. They are often sprinkled on pasta.

The shiso pasta can be made from fresh chopped leaves, sometimes combined with the crumbled roe of tarako,^[24] and the trick to success is not to cook the cod roe on the stove top, but to just to toss the hot pasta into it.

Korea[link]

In Korea, shiso is called Hangul: 소엽; Hanja: 蘇葉; RR: so-yeop; MR: soyŏp.

Nutritional[link]

Bactericidal and preservative effects of the shiso, due to the presence of terpenes such as perilla alcohol, have been noted.^[14]

Further etymology[link]

The word ohba was originally a trade name and was not entered into the Shin Meikai kokugo jiten until its 5th edition (Kindaichi 1997), and is not found in 4th edition (1989). This dictionary is more progressive the Kojien cited previously, as Kindaichi's dictionary, from the 1st ed. (1972), and definitely in the 2nd ed. (1974) defined shiso as a plant with leaves of purple(green) color".^[25]

Statistical data[link]

On the right is a bar graph showing the trend in total production of shiso in Japan. (Source:Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Japan) statistics. For green shiso, cumuative figures for shiso as vegetable is used.)^[26][13]

Raw data start from year 1960 (Showa 35), but for the shiso, the production figure was either negligible (far less than 1000t) or unavailble until the year 1976, as shown.

The 1970s was when refrigerated storage and refrigerated transport came online for shiso;^[13] but the same technology was bringing fresh produce and seafood to meal tables of ever-remoter parts away from farms or seaports. So foods like sashimi which was not daily fare for every Japanese was becoming exactly that, and the green shiso leaves, developed as a tsuma food item (i.e., garnish esp. for sashimi) quickly began to gain ground.

The no. 1 producer of produce type shiso among the 47 todofuken in Japan is Aichi Prefecture, boasting 3,852 tons, representing 37.0 % of national production (based on latest available FY2008 data).^[27] Another source uses greenhouse-grown production of 3,528 tons as the figure better representation actual ohba production, and according to this, the prefecture has a 56% share.^[13][28] The difference in percentage is an indicator that in Aichi, the leaves are 90% greenhouse produced, whereas nationwide, the ratio is just 60:40 in favor of indoors over open fields.^[29]

As aforestated, Toyohashi, Aichi is the city which produces the most shiso vegetable in Japan.^[12][30] They are followed in ranking by Namegata, Ibaraki.

There seems to be a growth spurt for shiso crops grown for industrial use. The data shows the following trend for crops targeted for oil and perfumery.^[31]

Sources[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Portals Site of Official Statistics of Japan". 2012. http://www.e-stat.go.jp/SG1/estat/eStatTopPortal.do. Retrieved April–2012. . This site is nominally available in English, but the search engine is not very robust.