HELLO from KOREA

Kimchi
Tangy and hot, it’s the accent and counterpoint
to a traditional meal of rice and
soup, but nowadays, kimchi is turning up
in pizzas and burgers, making it a most
versatile ingredient, not to mention the
test of a good cook. Even bachelors who
can hardly cook to survive know how to
transform leftover kimchi and rice
into sizzling fried rice or bubbling
kimchi stew.
The process of making
kimchi is an excellent
example of how
Korean women
approach cooking.
(Most men never enter
the kitchen, and most
women learn how to cook only after
marrying, and under the tutelage of their
mothers-in-law.)
Measurements? A handful of this, a
pinch of that. Food processors? Bare
hands rigorously pound, mash, or rub.
Fingers are dipped into the sauce for a
taste. Seasonings are adjusted drop by
drop. The best makers of kimchi are “old
hands,” literally, because Korean cooking
is very much a manual-intensive labor,
and the best cooks are said to have a
magic touch.
No recipe book can subsitute for the
years of trial and error necessary to develop
the tastebuds to detect subtle variations
of flavor and the intution to season
accordingly. In the past, all the women
who married into one family learned to
make kimchi in the same kitchen with
their mothers-in-law. The family’s distinctive
flavor of kimchi has been handed
down through generations.
These days, fewer women have the
time or space to make kimchi in
the traditional way. With
nuclear families now the
rule, urban households
living in apartments are
unable to join together
for Gimjang, the annual
winter kimchi making
during which enough batches
are made to last several
households all winter. kimchi used to
be stored underground in earthen-ware
jars that aided the fermentation process,
but nowadays, special containers and
even refrigerators are being developed to
allow modern women to make smaller
batches all year round.
The easiest and quickest kimchi to
make is mul kimchi, or water- kimchi.
Slightly sweet and very refreshing, it’s the
perfect comple-ment to heavy, rich dishes.
Unlike most other forms of kimchi, this
one does not require fermented salt
shrimp paste (jeotgal), and is fermented
within days.
109 _ Holidays and Food
household and the guest. In the Joseon Dynasty, there were five kinds of
settings for everyday meals, never mind feasts. Only the royals could
afford and enjoy the 12-course meal. The yangban class (aristocrats) were
entitled to 9- or 7-course. Commoners were limited to the 5- or 3-course,
meals. Three-course may not sound like much, but a menu consisted of at
least rice, soup, kimchi, three vegetable dishes, two broiled foods, and
two salty condiments. Imagine then the daily fare of the royal court, and