omonatheydid | It doesn't sound nice, but there's plenty of it

Natalie Hambly discovers a food that means as much to Koreans - and tastes as weird to foreigners - as Vegemite does to Australians

After spending a week in South Korea I wondered what would stand out as being the most memorable moment of the trip.

I thought it might be the fantastic shopping (so much range, so cheap!), the 24-hour malls or even South Korea's extensive history (10 Unesco World Heritage sites). Perhaps it would be the stunning autumn colours, the beautiful temples and the grand palaces.

But no, it was none of these things.

Instead it was kimchi, the ever-present spicy fermented cabbage dish. I came home and mentioned it to my friends and family and was met with blank faces. 'What are you talking about?' they asked. So I described it and then I was met with screwed up faces. 'It doesn't sound very nice'.

And the honest response is that many times it isn't, at least to the untrained palate. But boy there is lots of it.

When you are in South Korea some things are just inevitable. You will likely find the hotels too hot, you will struggle with the metal chopsticks, you will have a run in with an 'ajuma' (the bossy elderly women) and you most certainly will eat, or at least be served, a lot of fermented cabbage.

There is lots of great food to be found in South Korea, especially the barbecued meats (bulgogi). A meal typically comes with a main dish and half a dozen side dishes. The side dishes will vary but you can guarantee that one of them will always be kimchi.

I tried to liken South Korea's love of kimchi to how Australians love vegemite - a food that is a part of our culture that foreigners don't really understand. But that isn't really going far enough because kimchi isn't just a part of their diet, it is a part of their country's history.

Koreans don't just eat kimchi, they make it. They don't just store it in the cupboard, they buy a special fridge that is used only for storing kimchi. They don't just have it for breakfast, they have it with every meal. And is if that isn't enough, they even snack on it in between meals.

Even though it is eaten by everyone, it is traditionally made by women. For centuries the women in communities gathered together before winter to make it for all of their families and even now, when you can easily buy kimchi in packets at the supermarket, a woman is not considered good marriage material if she doesn't know how to make kimchi.

So, not wanting to be accused of being a bad marriage prospect, I visited the Poongmi Foods factory in Suwon, about an hour outside Incheon, to learn more about the country's obsession and to have a go at making it for myself.

I was greeted at the door by a woman wearing a lab coat and glasses. She looked more like a scientist than my cooking instructor for the day, which is perhaps a sign of just how seriously the business of kimchi-making is.

We were about five minutes into the demonstration when I realised that I wasn't ever going to be making kimchi at home (turns out I am not good wife material). The amount of salt used alone was astounding. Every cabbage leaf is sprinkled with salt and then the cabbage head is left to soak in water overnight. No wonder South Koreans have a sodium problem!

The next day you make a spicy paste, using about a dozen different raw ingredients including ginger, garlic, fish paste and spring onions, which is then rubbed into every leaf. The head of cabbage, which has severely wilted from the salt bath, is then rolled up and placed in a container for fermenting for as long as you desire.

Luckily when it came time to making it for myself most the hard work was taken out with spicy paste pre-prepared and ready to go. I just had to spread it on each leaf and have a go at folding up the cabbage head – which is easier said than done. It is messy business and even with gloves and an apron the red paste was soon everywhere.

But the best part was still to come – the tasting. It turns out that freshly made kimchi is a lot easier on the Australian palate than the fermented version. It was without a doubt the best kimchi I had eaten on my trip so far. It was salty and spicy but also had a lovely crunch and the garlic provided a nice flavour, with none of the sourness that you usually find in the kimchi you eat in restaurants.

Even though it turned out to be fairly easy to make I was still surprised to discover that the factory made each piece of kimchi manually. They really do take it seriously. Looking down at the factory floor through a glass window I saw workers lined up in front of a conveyor belt, individually spreading the spicy paste onto each leaf by hand and expertly wrapping up the cabbage to be placed in vacuum-sealed packs, just like what I had just done, although with significantly more speed and skill.I went back to my hotel room that night knowing more about kimchi than I ever thought I would and I tried to do two things: lower the temperature of my room and get the taste of raw garlic out of my mouth. Both were impossible, but definitely memorable.

Facts about kimchi:

- the word kimchi most commonly refers to the spicy fermented cabbage dish but technically there are more than a hundred varieties.

- the cabbage, or whatever vegetable used, was traditionally placed in a clay pot and buried underground to ferment. While clay pots can still be found all over the country these days South Koreans store their kimchi in an airtight container and keep it in the fridge to ferment. If you want to make kimchi at home buy a special container for it, because once the container has stored kimchi you won't be using it for anything else!

- the fermenting process takes anywhere from a few days to a week and it keeps for months. The longer it ferments the more sour the flavour.

- while the process of fermenting vegetables was originally used to keep up a vegetable supply in winter, kimchi is eaten all year round and is served cold as a side dish with every meal.

- Acknowledging that Koreans consumed around twice the recommended daily sodium intake largely due to kimchi the Korean Food and Drug Administration recommended it be made with less salt, especially considering the salt is mainly used as a preservative which is almost redundant now with refrigeration.

- Stomach cancer is the most common cancer in South Korea, which is thought to be because of their salty diets.

- The Japanese introduced chilli to Korea and kimchi was transformed. You can still buy it without chilli, which is referred to as 'white kimchi'.

- It is even the stuff of legend. Scientists in Seoul found that bird flu-infected chickens started recovering after being fed kimchi. While it wasn't scientifically proven as a cure, South Korea suffered a kimchi shortage during the SARS crisis as other Asian nations rushed to buy the food.

Natalie visited South Korea as a guest of the Korean Tourist Organization. Kimchi cooking classes and factory tours are available at Poongmi Foods, phone: 82-31-296-8168. Not planning to leave Seoul? Visit the Pulmuone Kimchi Museum (http://www.kimchimuseum.co.kr)

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

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From:

dorkiilove.livejournal.com

what the hell is vegemite? LOL

From:

taylorniw.livejournal.com

it's a type of spread and it's also used as a filling sometimes. I've never had it.

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