Question Description:

I know that chili peppers are native to the Americas, not a Chinese species, and that they were introduced to China at the end of the Ming and beginning of the Qing Dynasty, and that they have only been around for 300 to 400 years. Curious if this is the same time that Korea started eating chili peppers? And produced the current Korean national treasure "kimchi". Before the introduction of chili peppers, were the eating habits of Koreans very different from what they are now? This question has puzzled me for a long time!

Answer:

Kimchi is one of the most important dishes in Korea, and the variety and deliciousness of Korean kimchi is beyond the imagination of foreigners and people who have never been to Korea. According to evidence, Korean kimchi has a history of more than 3,000 years, and the word "mince" appears in the Chinese book of poetry, and the word "mince" is interpreted as sauerkraut in the Chinese dictionary, which is considered by Koreans to be the first written record of kimchi in the world. Due to the cold and long winters in Korea's geographic location, the large amount of lactic acid bacteria produced during the pickling process of kimchi was a way for Koreans to obtain essential nutrients from their food in ancient times. Initially, kimchi was just salt used to pickle vegetables, but in the 16th and 17th centuries, the introduction of chili peppers revolutionized the preparation of kimchi. Since Korea has a lot of sea, chili peppers removed the fishy taste of kimchi made with fish, so it was used as a spice, and from there began to give birth to an endless variety of Korean kimchi.

Korean people to kimchi as a filling, actually can be made into hamburgers, sandwiches, pizza, sushi, dumplings, yakisoba; kimchi to its various raw materials shape, color, cleverly made into a variety of fish, animals, plants, flowers of various types of snacks decorated; kimchi raw materials are octopus, sea cucumbers, shrimp and crab; raw materials and a variety of fruits, leaves, ginseng and so on. Counting, no less than a thousand types of kimchi.