Kimchi (pron: kym - CHEE), or gimchi, could well be Korea's best known food. The fermented Chinese cabbage and chili dish is served with just about every meal in Korea.
I was watching a new movie from Korea at Toronto's annual international film festival in early September. It was called "Family Ties" and one of the lasting images I have of the film is a family making kimchi with rubber gloves and buckets. The three women and one man were shoving gloopy pieces of cabbage dripping in chilis into each other's mouths.
The joy with which the actors slurped the kimchi was a sight to behold. It was also a moment in the film when the characters had gelled and were enjoying each other's company. The scene made me consider what kimchi means to the Korean culture.
Kimchi seems Korean through and through but its main variation happens to use napa, or Chinese cabbage.
There are hundreds of variations but for the most part the basic ingredients include the cabbage, radish, garlic, red pepper, spring onion, salt, sugar and anchovy broth. Its European cousin would be the German sauerkraut, only a very spicy version.
By the way, you can look to Devy Stone's coleslaw article for some inspiration concerning cabbage.
Kimchi-making takes place in late fall and requires a group effort for a few days. Families may use as many as 200 to 300 cabbages. At the end of the kimchi-making, those who chipped in are given jars of their creation. What a great group exercise, eh? Similar to making jam I suppose.
First, the cabbage is soaked in salty water for a day. Then it has to be rinsed a few times to get rid of the remaining salt. The rest of the ingredients (chilis, salt, sugar, anchovy paste, clams, garlic etc...) should be mixed together. The mixture is placed on each leaf and stored in a kimchi pot - a type of small crock barrel. A heavy stone is placed on top.
The pots are stored or buried underground to keep the jars at a continuous temperature of between 0 and 5 degrees Celsisus. The fermentation lasts between two to three weeks.
These days, as modern life gets busier, fewer families get together for the annual winter "Gimjang" to make kimchi. The reality is that many buy their kimchi at the supermarket year-round. Special containers have also been created so the need for kimchi pots has been eradicated. As well, refrigerators are being developed to allow families to make small batches throughout the year.
Most Koreans have a separate refrigerator to store kimchi because its sharp smell is known to corrupt the flavour of other foods being stored near it.
ORIGINS AND BENEFITS
The first mention of kimchi dates back almost 3,000 years ago. Ancient texts refer to pickling cucumbers for a ceremony. Around the 2nd Century B.C., the Chinese cabbage made an appearance. In the years after, different ingredients were added to spice it up (salt, fermented fish, garlic) and by the 1700s chili peppers had made their appearance in Korea and people began experimenting with new vegetables. That's how the current Chinese cabbage version came to be.
It's thought that the name is derived from "shimchae" (salting of vegetable) and over the years, it morphed to "dimchae" and to "kimchae."
There are seasonal variations on kimchi with the spring/summer versions having a lighter taste and using a mixed variety of vegetables.
Nutritionally, kimchi is chock full of vitamins such as A and C, fibres and minerals such as calcium, thiamine, riboflavin and iron. It's thought to aid digestion and in lowering blood cholesterol.
Like many fermented products, such as yogurt, kimchi is full of "good bacteria" called lactobacilli. This kind of bacteria helps stop and even prevent yeast infections, some studies suggest kimchi has compounds that may prevent the growth of certain cancers.
I have also noticed many Korean women have beautiful skin and the reason may lie in kimchi. A Korean university study, using mice, concluded that substances in kimchi may delay the skin aging process (!!).
The Kimchi Field Museum in Seoul has documented 187 varieties of kimchi. Kimchi can be made using cucumbers, radishes and mustard leaf. The southern areas of Korea tend to use more seafood in preparation so the taste is a little sweeter while northern regions use less salt and the taste is milder.
KIMCHI-IN-A-TIN
During the Vietnam War, the South Korean government asked a few scientists to figure out how to pack kimchi in a can so that it could last a long time for its soldiers on the front. In 1966, the first kimchi-in-a-tin was shipped out to Korean troops in Vietnam. This marked the first mass modern production of kimchi. During that time, 90 per cent of canned kimchi was earmarked for Korean forces.
Each Korean devours an average of 10 to 15 kg of kimchi annually.
For more kimchi information, I found a great website about about kimchi, which has various recipes.
