Kimchi

Kim-chi

Nowadays, many of different kinds of Korean foods are being popular and being eaten in many various countries. There are Kimchi, bi-bim-bap, kim-bap, sam-gyup-sal, bul-go-gi and more. Kimchi is one of the most famous Korean traditional dishes which are made through fermenting vegetables. Many foreigners tend to recall Kimchi when they are thinking of Korea.

According to the written history about Kimchi, Kimchi was found and being eaten from 2600 to 3000 years ago. At first, Kimchi was called ‘cimche’ which has the original meaning of ‘pickled vegetable’ followed by second given name ‘dimche’ which was purely renamed because of palatalization.

There are many kinds of Kimchi, for example, cabbage-kimchi, mul-kimchi and ggak-du-gi. Among all the different kinds of Kimchi, the most common and well-known Kimchi is cabbage Kimchi which is made by fermenting celery cabbage with Korean traditional seasoning. The seasoning would be made from mixing garlic, ginger, fish sauce, Korean spicy powder called go-chu-ga-ru and more.

Furthermore, other types of Kimchi are being differentiated by normal cabbage Kimchi depends on the ingredients and the way to make it. While normal cabbage Kimchi is being made by fermenting cabbage, ggak-du-gi is made by cubed radish with similar seasoning with cabbage Kimchi. Even though there are various types of Kimchi, most of them are being seasoned with similar ingredients.

In Korea, Kimchi is the most basic side dish for meals. It means Koreans like to eat Kimchi with their every single meal which led Kimchi to be like a ‘must-have-item’ for Koreans when it comes to having a meal. This can be proven by the issue which was raised in 2010. In 2010, there was a rise in price of Kimchi ingredients such as cabbage due to rainfall that affected the harvest of cabbage and other raw ingredients. Then it was such a huge issue for Koreans, so Korean government had to find alternatives to get harvests through importing from other country or by helping out local harvesting.

As I have mentioned previously, Kimchi is the most Korean style of food and most being eaten food by Koreans. Therefore, Kimchi is deemed a precious and essential food for Koreans.