A day without kimchi?
Hard to imagine. Kimchi takes up a very important part of the dietary
life of Koreans. We eat it every day in every meal but never once are
we fed up with it. We eat it all our life. We think something is missing
when there is no kimchi on the dining table. While bap (boiled
rice), which is the main diet, can be replaced with something else,
nothing can take the place of kimchi. There is always kimchi no matter
what the main dish is - when they are drinking, when they are eating
Korean rice bread, or meat, or noodles or dimsum to replace
bap. A hearty meal with every delicacy is incomplete without
kimchi. This is part of the reason why Koreans feel troubled when they
stay for a long time in a foreign country where there is no kimchi
available.
Having meals without kimchi was a serious problem for the early
Korean emigrants. The first generation of the Korean settlers in the U.S.,
Japan, China, and Russia tried to solve the problem by forming small
Korean communities. They grew Korean breed of vegetables like
Chinese cabbage,
radish,
chili and
garlic, and made kimchi together.
When growing Korean breed was not possible, they made kimchi from
what they could get in the region. Of course it was not quite the same
as what they used to have before they left Korea, but this was how
they tried in every possible way to get kimchi. This is how kimchi
spread around the world.
Now kimchi is getting more and more popular among foreigners thanks
to these emigrants. Also the number of foreign people is increasing who
look for Korean restaurants or kimchi products.
[ Prev | Next | Up | Home ]
Infomecca(C)
1995~1996
web@www.Infomecca.co.kr