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Earth Knowledge Bureau - Korean Kimchi

NO.885-Korean Kimchi

By Kakamara

Korean dramas have been an important window for the country of South Korea to show itself to the world in this century. Important window, but also through the display of Korean life, improve the national soft power of Korea.

And through Korean dramas, viewers do learn a lot about the current state of Korean society in a slightly glamorized way. One of the most talked about by Chinese viewers is the Korean dinner table. Ramen noodles, seaweed soup and kimchi are the most common regulars in the family life of Korean dramas.

This is true in the real Korea, too. If a family's daughter-in-law can't make kimchi, she's bound to be despised by her in-laws, and those who can make good kimchi are rewarded.

How did kimchi get to the top?

For the formation of a food culture, natural factors play a decisive role. The same is true for kimchi.

The Korean Peninsula is located in the eastern part of Asia, surrounded by the sea on three sides, only the north is connected to the mainland. The southern part of the oceanic climate is more obvious, while the northern part of the transition to continental climate. Characterized by four distinct seasons of the year, high temperature and rainy summer, while the winter by the Siberian cold stream of the influence of cold and dry, and lasted a long time.

The cold climate results in a very short growing season for Korean vegetables.

It is still colder in the North

To eat vegetables during the long winter, it is necessary to store them in large quantities. But in the days when there were no modern storage methods, vegetables also had to undergo special treatment to be eaten for a long time. It is in this context that kimchi became Korea's national food.

Korean kimchi culture is closely related to the deep culture of China. China's "Poetry" has a record, "in the middle of the field there is a hut, the border has a melon, is peeled is minced, offered to the emperor ancestor", where the "minced" (read zū) is pickles. In the Northern Wei Dynasty "Qimin Yaojutsu" is recorded in the detailed production methods of pickles.

The kimchi family should be neatly organized

The development of kimchi in Korea has gone through several important stages.

According to the Records of the History of the Three Kingdoms, the bride price ordered by King Shenwen when he married his consort in 683 included foods such as soy sauce, dashi, and miso paste, suggesting that fermented foods have been very popular since that time. However, due to the obscurity of the documents, the specific fermentation technology is still unknown. However, it is generally recognized in academic circles that kimchi has existed since the era of the Three Kingdoms. However, kimchi was very popular at that time, and there is still a difference between kimchi and kimchi today.

From the unified Silla era to the Goryeo era, the method of making kimchi was continuously improved.

When chili peppers were imported from Japan to Korea during the Bonjin War, the Koreans discovered that this amazing spice was an excellent ingredient for kimchi, and the variety of kimchi began to diversify, and the color of kimchi changed from a more homogeneous green to red. (In addition, fish and shrimp, fruits, and fish and shrimp sauces are added as condiments.) Chili peppers were used to remove the fishy smell, so they replaced the traditional method of making kimchi with salt.

With the sesame sauce to the stink of the same flavor

Since then, kimchi has become more and more indispensable to people's tables and tables of one of the food. And a good kimchi requires people to prepare it for a whole year.

In order to make a good kimchi, Koreans from the beginning of the year to start busy: March ~ June pickled fish sauce, June ~ September to prepare chili peppers and garlic, after October to do the storage of vegetables, can be eaten until the next year's lunar calendar in February. Do storage vegetables also pay attention to the climate, sudden frost or sudden cold will prompt to do storage vegetables in advance, the best average temperature is 4 ℃, so conducive to the preservation of radish, cabbage.

Hands should be washed

There are three processes involved in making stored vegetables: salting out the water from the cabbage, applying seasonings and storing for fermentation. Such a huge amount of work can't be done in a short period of time by just one family, so people use job-swapping to increase efficiency, with family, friends and neighbors all working together to complete the storage of the cabbage. This also forms part of the traditional economic behavior in Korea.

The most crucial process in this is to use the gap between salting the cabbage to make the seasoning, wash the radish, and the toppings to be applied to the cabbage.

Several people sit around the basin, and after washing the cabbage, it is placed on a chopping board to drain, and then the ingredients are put into the basin, and the ingredients made from raw radish, watercress, mustard greens, green onions, garlic, ginger, chili powder, and fish and shrimp sauce are applied to the cabbage layer by layer, with a small amount of kimchi wrapped around the cabbage's heart in the process to create a cabbage ball kimchi. Finally, the seasoned cabbage yards in the kimchi tank, the cabbage leaves change in the top sprinkle some salt to prevent deterioration, and finally with a large stone to the cabbage compacted in a suitable place sealed preservation to fermentation.

Large-scale kimchi production site

After 15 days or a month of fermentation, you can enjoy delicious kimchi.

With the development of the times and the improvement of the living standard, kimchi is not only eaten as a mixed dish, but also eaten in a variety of ways. Kimchi pizza, kimchi soup, kimchi ramen and other ways to eat endless. In short, the Korean people change the way to eat kimchi is what people can not learn.

Kimchi with rice

Kimchi's Chinese sister

The figure of Korean kimchi is not only limited to the Korean Peninsula, China's northeastern Jilin Yanbian that part of the kimchi is not bad.

Yanbian is the main gathering place of the Korean people in China. According to history, some of the Korean ancestors fled to the northeast of China and Russia in order to escape the Japanese killings. Qing Guangxu seven years (1881), Yanbian area of the Korean has reached more than 10,000 people.

Spicy cabbage to know

Accompanying the migrants was the arrival of a new culture. As the winters in the Northeast remain as cold, dry and long as in North Korea, kimchi became the premier food. After the arrival of kimchi in Yanbian, the history of the development of a unique Yanbian specialty - spicy cabbage.

Qing Guangxu twenty-six years (1900), the success of the trial planting of rice in Yanbian; Republic of ten years (1921), Longjing City, Taoyuan Township farmers cultivate apple pear success. These two agricultural technology has played a crucial role in the development of Yanbian spicy cabbage. Yanbian people began to use Yanbian rice and apple pear added to the processing of spicy cabbage sauce. Later, the addition of cilantro enriched the flavor of spicy cabbage.

I don't want to dislike anything

It's not bad anyway

The Northeast's spicy cabbage is different from Korea's kimchi. Korean kimchi is made with squid sauce, while the Northeast's spicy cabbage is more similar to North Korea's, made with mentaiko sauce, and has a slightly lighter flavor than Korean kimchi.

Northeastern people like to eat there is a kind of sauerkraut, just the Northeast sauerkraut seasoning is not so much fancy, almost as long as the salt can be, more like the traditional ancient method of kimchi. As a result, it is also simpler in practice and takes slightly less time than spicy cabbage.

How Kimchi Became a Trendsetter

Korean kimchi is not only delicious, but also diverse, with different tastes and characteristics.

Because kimchi is made from fresh vegetables, it is low in calories, full of water, rich in vitamins and minerals such as calcium and phosphorus, which not only meets the nutritional needs of the human body, but also prevents diseases such as atherosclerosis and aids in digestion and anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, which are loved by the Korean people.

Not only do Koreans love it

It looks like Americans love it too

And in the course of history, the village culture-based character of kimchi has also played a role in adding to the heritage of kimchi. Each family has a different way of making kimchi, with unique craftsmanship and secret recipes, and kimchi pickling has become a skill that has been passed down from generation to generation.

In Korea, kimchi is also known as "affection made with a mother's love", and the taste of kimchi is also called "mother's taste". The flavor of kimchi is also called "mom's flavor". It is because of the love and sincerity for mothers that kimchi is called a "filial product".

On December 5, 2013, Korean kimchi culture was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. At the critical moment of the inscription, more than 300 Koreans gathered in Seoul and ****together made more than 100 tons of kimchi, breaking the world Guinness record for the most people making kimchi together and bringing the inscription to a climax.

What a gourmet dish contains shouldn't simply be the flavor, but the human feelings behind it. In their bid, the Koreans focused on explaining the human stories behind the overwintered kimchi:

Before winter, neighbors gather to make and share kimchi together, forming a warm landscape. This spirit of neighborly *** enjoyment strengthens the bond, sense of belonging and identity among Koreans, adding a human touch to the cultural core of kimchi. And this is the decisive factor in the success of the Korean kimchi heritage bid.

Everyone together

Koreans themselves have made many efforts for kimchi.

In 1994, Gwangju, the "hometown of kimchi", established the "Kimchi Museum", and held a month-long "Kimchi Festival" in October every year; in 2004, Korea established the Kimchi Association. In 2004, Korea established the Kimchi Association; LG, Samsung and other electronics companies developed a kimchi refrigerator; many like the University of Korea, Seoul National University and other institutions of higher learning set up a special research institute and set up a professional, its research papers and literature on kimchi is countless.

The foreigner restaurant kimchi museum

And now, the Korean kimchi is also facing the impact of the parties.

The success of the Korean kimchi heritage bid in China also caused a lot of discussion and questions. Why South Korean kimchi originated in China, but later pre-emptive heritage success? There are also many people questioned South Korea to change the name of kimchi (Kimchi), that it is a kind of cultural theft. But no matter what, the success of the bid has become an established fact, and Korean kimchi in the ingredients, production, consumption and culture have their own unique characteristics, arguing and no objection, how to make China's unique other foods go out is what we should consider.

Kimchi would be an extremely useful example for both Chinese culture and world culture.

Culture should not be detached from the reality of people's lives, but more in the integration of life. Because culture supports not only a country, a nation, but the spirit of mankind.

END