If you look way way back in my blog, to one of my first entries, I outline my feelings on Korean food. There is an entire paragraph devoted to that staple dish of Korea. The one dish that is present at every meal. No, not the rice. I'm speaking of the one Korean dish that foreigners have heard of... kim-chi.
To refresh your memory, kim-chi is a fermented veggie dish. It is made generally from cabbage, but is also made from daikon radish or cucumber. It contains things like garlic and lots and lots of peppers and pepper paste. It is spicy. It is so sour. It is ice cold. And, it is present at EVERY SINGLE MEAL in Korea. I thank God everyday that boendaegi (silk worm larvae) isn't the national dish. I hear that it smells bad and has the consistency of soggy peanuts.
Anyway, I have to say that after months of saying no, that I now say yes. I eat the dreaded kim-chi. Everyday at lunch. Do I like it? No. Why do I eat it? I don't know. It's my own little form of penance. It is my offering to the gods of Korean cultural assimilation. Sometimes I am rewarded with actually good kim-chi, but most often I am not. Oh well. C'est la vie. When in Anseong, do as the Anseongians do.
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3 comments:
i want to try it...you made it sound good!
It sounds like hot sauerkraut.
did i ever tell you the story of how i wanted to raise silkworms and make silk when i was a little kid, and marvelled at how many miles of silken filaments was in a cocoon and how it was stronger than steel?
Plus i liked silk. My kind of cloth.
But alas, i didn't know where to find the mulberry trees they ate (they only eat that) and plus mulberry trees would never make it in Michigan winters. I wanted a mulberry tree for Christmas. I knew where to get the silkworms... And i also balked at the thought of having to boil those cocoons in order to dissolve them so they could be unwound, killing the little moth inside.
but anyway, i digress...that silkworm dish sounds like Fear Factor Food.
Wish i could think of something gross....hmmm...
If you want milder kim-chi, you eat it when it is fresh. Then it's more like spicy cole slaw. The cucumber kim-chi is more cooling. The coolness of the cucumber soothes the agony of the spices.
the coolness of the cucumber....the agony of the spices...
sounds like life!
i must eat this kim-chi.....
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