All Things Kimchi

By Lorraine Sharaf 

The first time that I tasted Korea’s National Dish was at a college picnic with a group of Korean students, who had brought along large blue and white plastic coolers filled with cooked white rice to accompany strips of marinated beef threaded onto wooden skewers for grilling and accompanied by red-colored fermented vegetables and cabbage. They told me that this cabbage, called Kimchi, had been made by one of the mothers of the students who placed it into a clay pot and buried it in the ground for a year. Cabbage buried in the ground, for a year? I had never heard of that but was intrigued. I was warned that it was very spicy and that I didn’t need to taste it. No lightweight would I be to this cosmopolitan group, so I refused the fork, and used a pair of chopsticks to grab a large bite and pop it into my mouth. Hmmm… a bit tangy, sour, salty, a cabbage seafood flavor and then hot – hot, hot, HOT, coughing, not sure what to do until my hysterically laughing friends handed me a bowl of rice. 

Two bowls of rice later, I had mostly recovered and was relieved to see that my Korean friends were also tearing up and blowing their noses. I was assured that this batch was exceptionally hot and that they were impressed that I had been so bold. There was a friendly competition among the boys on how much heat that they could handle. Sitting at picnic tables in Penn State’s Happy Valley, someone’s mother’s homemade kimchi was a happy taste of home. 

Not all kimchi is so spicy, nor does it always contain cabbage. Variations depend on the region, local community, historical traditions, season, available ingredients and personal taste. Currently, there are 200 officially recognized varieties! Like so many other food traditions before refrigeration, Koreans needed to preserve vegetables for the winter months. Originating during the time of the Three Kingdoms of Korea (57 BC — 668 AD), people learned to preserve vegetables and seafood by fermenting them with salt. Kimchi did not contain chili peppers until the early 17th century when peppers from Mexico made their way to Korea. Besides being a daily staple, kimchi has achieved a National Identity by bringing together families and communities every year to make and share. In 2013, UNESCO added Kimjang, which describes making and sharing kimchi in the Republic of Korea to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity with the following reasoning:

“The collective practice of Kimjang reaffirms Korean identity and is an excellent opportunity for strengthening family cooperation. Kimjang is also an important reminder for many Koreans that human communities need to live in harmony with nature. Preparation follows a yearly cycle. In spring, households procure shrimp, anchovy and other seafood for salting and fermenting. In summer, they buy sea salt for the brine. In late summer, red chili peppers are dried and ground into powder. Late autumn is Kimjang season, when communities collectively make and share large quantities of kimchi to ensure that every household has enough to sustain it through the long, harsh winter.”

With greater interest in ethnic dishes and healthy foods, kimchi has become more popular in America, and I’ve discovered a number of variations in the flavor and spiciness. But I did not realize how easy it is to make until the Bucks County Foodshed Alliance hosted a Kimchi Workshop at the Plumsteadville Grange on Wednesday evening, November 13th.

Sunghee Kim, of Hundred Fruit Farm, taught a group of us culinary curious food lovers to make kimchi from locally sourced vegetables. Our group ranged in experience from one person having never tasted kimchi to another having helped make kimchi in a baby pool with the community where she had lived in South Korea. Our instructor, Sunghee is originally from South Korea and now lives in Buckingham, PA, where she and her husband, Adam Dusen, own and run their ten-acre permaculture farm, nursery, and educational space.

Making the Kimchi:

Following the Kimjang model, we made the kimchi together. We began by cleaning and chopping napa cabbages into bite-sized pieces that we tossed into a large bowl with a mixture of salt and water to soften the leaves through the process of brining. 

We took turns tossing the cabbage every 30 minutes over the next 2 hours until the stems had become soft and salty, followed by rinsing the cabbage three times to remove the salt. While the cabbage was brining, we made a rice porridge, which provides a source of carbohydrates that feed the lactic acid bacteria responsible for the fermentation, and the kimchi paste. We tossed the cabbage into the porridge and paste mixture and thoroughly coated it by hand, which covered the mixers’ hands with an alarming bright red goop. Accompanied by lively chatter and laughter, we finished by pressing the final product into mason jars to fully submerse it into the liquid to avoid aeration and sent everyone home with two mason jars of kimchi to enjoy after a three-week refrigerated fermentation. 

Our recipe was made with cabbage, Korean winter radish, onions, garlic, ginger, apples, pears, Korean chili flakes, and fish sauce, but many variations include scallions, burdock roots, sweet potato stems, cucumbers, carrots, Korean chives, raw sugar instead of fruit, salted fermented shrimp, raw oysters, and other seafood. 

Although we chopped up the cabbage, Kimchee can also be made with whole cabbage leaves that are smeared with the kimchi paste instead of mixing it with the chopped pieces. 

Our local farmer Sources: Farmer John CSA, Blooming, Glenn Farm, Rolling Hills Farm and Hundred Fruit Farm. 

Couldn’t make it to the workshop? 

Here is Sunghee’s kimchi recipe.. Here are some websites with recipes and instructions for you to try! Some varieties have only root vegetables such as turnips and any kind of radish and are simpler to make. Although the Korean grandmothers probably would shake their heads at us and it’s not as authentic, if you don’t want to add the fish sauce or shrimp, that’s just fine. 

Some of these recipes call for peeling the root vegetables, we didn’t at the workshop and it’s too much work! Plus, just as important, the friendly Lactobacillus found on the skin of the vegetables, is essential for fermentation.

• Korean Radish Kimchi (Kkakdugi)
• Turnip Kimchi
• Or just google kimchi and take your pick!

For the curious: Do you know the difference between Sauerkraut and Kimchi? 

Both are fermented dishes that came from Asia. Sauerkraut, translated as Sour Cabbage, originated in China but has become popularized through German cuisine. It is a more basic dish of cabbage fermented by salt with the possible addition of caraway seeds and sliced onions and apples and has a tangy, acidic taste. 

Kimchi originated in Korea and remains a Korean dish made with cabbage and other vegetables fermented by salt and enhanced with other seasonings, such as garlic, ginger, red chili powder, red chili paste, fish sauce, and seafood. Kimchi’s flavor profile is more varied and complex depending on the level of spice and its various ingredients. 

Both are fermented side dishes that are rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals, as well as healthy bacteria (probiotics) that make the ingredients more digestible than their raw ingredients. 

The South Korean government helps to regulate cabbage and radish prices for kimchi. According to a 2008 article in the New York Times, “Koreans say they must eat kimchi wherever they are. When South Korea dispatched troops to the Vietnam War in the 1960s, tearful mothers sent off their sons with clay pots containing homemade kimchi.” 

When Ko San, the first South Korean space traveler, blasted off on April 8, 2008, he went with kimchi!