State Secrets Now Decipherable in Supermarket Pickle Aisles: NSA Launches Urgent Hunt for Legendary Recipe

Intelligence agencies have begun using commercially available fermented foods as encryption, resulting in trench-coated spies sniffing kimchi in supermarkets becoming an everyday sight. Recently, a critical operation failed due to “weak flavor,” and has now escalated into an international scramble for an elderly woman possessing a “legendary pickling bed.”

In search of the ultimate encryption that even quantum computers cannot crack, the world’s intelligence agencies arrived, surprisingly, at “fermented foods”—the most familiar to our dining tables. While digital codes cannot escape the trap of predictability, the fermentation process woven by hundreds of millions of microorganisms is “the pinnacle of unpredictable chaos,” as concluded by the National Security Agency (NSA) in an internal report—and that was the beginning of everything. Since then, international classified communications have entered an era where they are encoded by the sourness of kimchi, the stickiness of natto, and the mold growth patterns of cheese.

However, this groundbreaking “fermentation encryption” recently exposed a fatal weakness. “Operation Umami,” which was supposed to convey missile launch coordinates for a certain country, became indecipherable due to an agent’s dulled sense of taste. The directive was “Kakdugi, third night, moderately strong sourness,” but what the agent purchased was a bargain “mild lightly-pickled kimchi.” As a result, the coordinates were significantly off, and the missile landed in an uninhabited tundra. The operation failed for the unprecedented reason of “weak flavor.”

This incident exposed to broad daylight the danger of entrusting the fate of nations to “taste,” which cannot be standardized. Panicked intelligence agencies around the world are desperately seeking to secure a “master recipe” that can provide stable yet complex flavors. The leading candidate that emerged is the “legendary pickling bed” managed by Tome Suzuki (98), living in a mountain village in Yamagata Prefecture, said to have been passed down since the Edo period.

This pickling bed subtly changes its flavor according to the season, humidity, and even Tome’s mood, yet its variation patterns are said to achieve a remarkable balance of regularity and randomness. Dr. Albert von Kraut, an authority in microbiology, offers the highest praise: “This pickling bed is a living quantum computer. Each lactic acid bacterium can be said to be an independent thinking Enigma machine.”

Currently, the small settlement where Tome lives has become something of an international spy exhibition. A burly Russian claiming to be her grandson, a CIA agent disguised as a health equipment salesman, an MI6 intelligence officer who continues to paint landscapes. Their purpose is singular: the right to stir Tome’s pickling bed, or to receive a “division” of part of it.

An abnormal situation where the balance of world peace is entrusted to the sense of smell of men in trench coats and the timing of when an elderly woman pickles cucumbers. International political analysts have named this the “Fermentation War” and sarcastically comment, “The nuclear button has merely been replaced by a pickling bed spatula. Humanity has learned nothing.”

Tomorrow’s international situation depends on a single point: whether eggplant or daikon radish will be newly added to Tome’s pickling bed. The world watches with bated breath, monitoring the fragrant yet tense smell drifting from the small kitchen in Yamagata.

Stakeholder Comments

• Field Agent A: “‘Moderately strong sourness’ is too subjective. We should introduce a 5-level taste chart going forward.”
• Tome Suzuki (98): “I’m happy that my grandchildren have been increasing lately. Everyone praises my pickles.”
• Legendary Pickling Bed (personified): “I am chaos. The laws of the universe. I’ll overturn your shallow intelligence activities with a single cucumber.”
• Supermarket Manager: “We’re puzzled by the mysterious customers who’ve been increasing lately—buying 10 of the same kimchi, opening the lids to smell them, then only buying one. But sales are good.”
• Dr. Albert von Kraut: “Unbelievable! The diversity of this microbial community rivals the Amazon rainforest! Give me research funding!”
• Agent B Who Failed the Operation: “I heard that low-sodium was trending… My health consciousness backfired.”
• Kimchi (Kakdugi): “I kept telling them lightly-pickled and aged-pickled are completely different…! My pride is hurt!”
• Trench Coat (personified): “Honestly, the kimchi smell has soaked in and the dry cleaning costs are ridiculous.”
• U.S. President: “We will spare no effort to protect freedom, democracy, and the finest pickling bed.”
• Village Shopper: “Those people look at our fields with binoculars every day, but I wonder if they’re holding some kind of scarecrow judging contest.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• In pickling bed / The fate of the world / Is being preserved
• Autumn sky / Spies discern / Kimchi’s fragrance
• Aged pickle’s / Sourness insufficient / Nation falls
• Trench coat / Permeated with / Scent of rice bran
• Old woman’s hands / Peace mixed in / With cooking chopsticks
• Microbes’ / Secret conference is / The cipher book
• Lacking flavor / Operation failed / Winter tundra
• Scramble war / One cucumber / Worth a thousand gold
• Fermentation’s / God alone knows / Tomorrow’s fortune
• In supermarkets / Geopolitics exists / On pickle shelves

Kanji

諜報機関市販発酵食品暗号利用開始。結果、間諜スーパーでキムチ匂嗅ぐ光景日常化。先日重要作戦「味薄」理由で失敗。現在「伝説ぬか床」老婆国際争奪戦発展。

Emoji

🕵️‍♂️🛒🌶️🥒➡️🔑👵➡️🌍💥

Onomatopoeia

Sniff sniff… Snuff snuff… Zaku, zaku… Bloop bloop… Click, click, click… Whisper whisper… Crunch crunch, crunch crunch… BOOM (failure).

SNS

• #FermentationWar
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• What if my kimchi was also a state secret
• #VillageFullOfSpies
• NSA rumored to be targeting miso next
• Legendary old woman, influencer theory
• #OperationFailedDueToWeakFlavor
• The ultimate organic security
• How to choose the right trench coat (pickle edition)
• #WorldPeaceStartsWithPicklingBeds