Versatile Side Dish

Kimchi may be hard for some to palette. It may even surprise you that many Korean kids don't enjoy eating it. It fits into an acquired taste category, e.g., cheese, wine, coffee, natto, and pickles. Through exposure it can rise to a national favorite and something you take pride in eating.

I (for some reason or another) loved kimchi from the moment I first tried it as a university student. I saw a container of red vegetables at the Asian supermarket. I thought they were being soaked in some kind of spaghetti sauce. "Looks good! I think I'll try it," I thought to myself. It was nothing like spaghetti sauce. It was a tangy yet spicy taste that I had never been exposed to. Not knowing how to eat it, it put it in a bowl like I would for a salad. After I finished this jug of fermented cabbage (I didn't know so at the time), it faded from my grocery list for a few years. (At the time I thought it was a little expensive for just spicy vegetables.)

Years later I befriended some South Koreans through my university and local basketball court. I became aware that kimchi was a Korean food and that it was meant to be a side dish, usually served with rice, meat, and some other vegetables.

I was unintentionally separated from kimchi again for another few years until my time in Japan. Kimchi was cheap and widely available at any supermarket, but the taste wasn't the same as I had during my university days in Atlantic Canada. Japanese kimchi was milder and something was missing.

I became really interested in kimchi through seeing gimjang on Korean dramas on Japanese TV. Seeing a family, sometimes even a town, getting together and making kimchi together was amazing. Now that's primal (or paleo, whatever…). It's sad that a lot of modern cultures have lost this sense of community.

I started to read about kimchi a lot. I watched how to videos on YouTube. I learned that kimchi was a traditional way of preserving food. When I think of preserved food, I imagine unhealthy preservatives and all kinds of additives that can worsen your health. Kimchi on the other hand, through fermentation, not only preserves the food but it also increases (!) the nutritional content of the vegetables.

My passion for Korean food increased over the years and I became proficient in making kimchi. I no longer buy it in Japan because it doesn't suit my taste. I prefer Korean style kimchi, which is what I make at home. I have it at least once a day. It can be used as a side dish as in Korean cuisine, but it's also something that you can fuse with other dishes, e.g., kimchi fried rice, (minced) kimchi in an omelet, kimchi on steak, and kimchi with cheese. You may not like it at first, but if you give it a few tries and experiment with it, you'll be hooked. You'll experience withdrawal if you go a few days without it. Don't forget, it's often rated as one of the healthiest foods.