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THE ORIGINS, HISTORY AND CULTURE OF KIMCHEE

From ancient times to the present day, the fiery flavors of kimchee have dominated the Korean cultural landscape. Here we trace the development of the various types of kimchee, its references in Korean literature, past and present, and place it in its historical context. Both as a symbol of Korean cosmology and as an ordinary item in every household, kimchee is a unique dish found nowhere else in the world.

This ceramic jar, from the Kaya Confederation (c. 1st century AD), measures 89 cm in height, 55 cm across the mouth, 117 cm around the neck and 227 cm around the belly. Made of baked clay, it was used to store or move foodstuffs. The big clay jars commonly unearthed at sites that date to the period of the Three Kingdoms often show signs of having been used to store kimchee.

The character for pickle - pronounced ju in Chinese and cho in Korean.

It is generally acknowledged in the West that there are four cardinal tastes: sweet sour, bitter, and salty. Koreans, however, have an additional one, which they regard above those, namely, pungency. Pungency is one of the indispensable tastes in every Korean meal, necessary for stimulating the flow of saliva and the appetite.

The unique pungency of Korean food is the fermented flavor that is found in pickles (kimchee) and basic Korean condiments such as soybean sauce, soybean paste and chili paste. This flavor is the result of a kind of 'controlled spoilage' and is a distinctive characteristic of Korean cuisine,

Preserving Food

Drying was the very first method humans used to preserve foods. Later, they discovered that foods could also be preserved by salting, and later still, by fermentation. Although it was possible to store grains and nuts for long periods without using any of these methods, foods with high moisture content such as fish, meats, and vegetables could not be kept for any reasonable length of time without some special method of preservation. With vegetables, drying was not only difficult to carry out successfully, but also caused the vegetables to lose their nutritional value and flavor. Once salt was discovered, it was found that foodstuffs stored in salt both kept well and were good to eat Salting softened fibers, making the vegetables easier to chew, and induced amino and lactic acid fermentation. The earliest salt was found in seawater, rock-salt deposits or salt flats. Later, commercial salt was used.

Since ancient times, Korean people preserved wild vegetables by pickling. They also developed and mastered the techniques of salting, brining and fermenting. Once cultivation of vegetables began and herbs and spices were introduced from abroad, these new ingredients were mixed with existing ones to create new forms of foods. Such newly introduced vegetables were adapted to the Korean land and climate, and further developed.

The development of the kinds of kimchee Koreans eat today started when vegetables were brought in from abroad; especially revolutionary was the introduction of cabbages that formed a dense head. New concoctions made use of wild vegetables to create new kinds of kimchees, such as the honhap kimchee, sokpakchi, and pyolmi kimchee. The cultivation of head cabbages also led to the development of lactic-acid fermentation. As people experienced the efficacy of using spices and fermented fish paste in addition to fish or meat as appropriate, the kinds of kimchees commonly found today gradually came into being.

Rice is always served in Korean households along with vegetable, meat or fish dishes and the ubiquitous kimchee.

Defining Kimchee

The earliest record of kimchee is in China's oldest collection of poetry, the Book of Odes, which was written nearly 3,000 years ago. The section entitled 'Xiao Ya' contains a stanza: "On the bank of the field, a cucumber has grown. If you slice it up, pickle it, and offer it to your ancestors, your progeny will live long and you'll receive the blessings of Heaven." The character for pickle (pronounced ju in Chinese and cho in Korean) means kimchee. This ju is the ancestor of kimchee.

The earliest appearance of this character in extant Korean literature occurs in Tonggugisanggukship or the History of the Koryo Dynasty, written by Yi Kyu-bo (1168-1241). Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to assume that this is actually the oldest documented reference to kimchee in Korea. Some scholars believe the word kimchee is derived from a combination of two Chinese characters meaning 'salted vegetables.' In August 1966, at the Second International Academic Conference on Food Science and Engineering in Warsaw, Poland, it was decided that k-i-m-c-h-e-e should be the official English spelling of this Korean national dish.

A painting by an anonymous artist of the Choson Dynasty. The earliest extant record of cabbage in Korea is found in a Koryo Dynasty book entitled Hyangyakkugumbang, but references to cabbage in books on agriculture were rare until the middle of the Choson Dynasty. Before this, radish was the main vegetable. It was not common to make kimchee out of cabbage until the introduction of Brassica pekinensis from China some time after it was first cultivated in the region of Beijing in the mid 1700s.

Tonggugisanggukchip (History of the Koryo Dynasty), written by Yi Kyu-bo of the Koryo Dynasty, is believed to contain the oldest extant written reference to kimchee in Korea. The book is open at the section entitled 'Kapoyugyong,' a poem about six vegetables grown in home gardens: cucumbers, eggplant, turnips, Welsh onions and gourds.

History

The earliest written references to kimchee date from the second half of the Koryo Dynasty (918-1392). Nevertheless, in view of the fact that such Chinese texts as the Hou Zhou Shu say that cereals, fruits, and vegetables were grown in Paekche and Silla as they were in China, and the production of alcoholic beverages was the same as in China, it seems quite likely that kimchee-like fermented vegetable dishes were already being made and eaten during Korea's Three Kingdom period (4th century-mid-7th century). This was an era when exchanges with China flourished. Methods of pickling vegetables would have been similar to those used in China, and because this period predates the cultivation of vegetables brought in from distant lands, it is probable that the vegetables used in kimchee were local wild species.

Korean food underwent great changes during the Choson Dynasty (1392-1894). Of paramount importance was the introduction of chilies at the end of the 16th century. Some scholars maintain that chilies were brought to Korea directly by Portuguese soldiers who were among the Ming reinforcements that aided Korea during the Japanese invasions. (Whether this is true or not, it is known that chili powder was not widely used in kimchee until the 18th century, nearly 200 years after chili peppers were introduced.) Korean people have always had a taste for food that is hot, both in terms of temperature and spiciness, and the strong flavors of mustard and black pepper have always been popular. When chilies became available, Koreans started to add them to kimchee, which had previously been pickled in a brine flavored with Japanese pepper or fennel. They learned that chilies helped to keep kimchee from spoiling and allowed for the use of less salt.

Old map of Korea.

The origin of Japanese pickled radish is chogangji (ji meaning pickle), but the etymology and meaning of chogang are not clear. In the Kojiki, an 8th-century Japanese history book, there is the story of a man named Chogang who crossed over from Kudara (the Japanese name for Paekche) during the reign of the emperor Ojin and taught the local people how to brew with malt. Perhaps this indicates that chogangji was introduced to Japan from ancient China via Paekche.

A vegetable market of the Choson Dynasty, with piles of long skinny cabbages on display.

Examples of a stone and a wooden mortar. Big mortars were used for pounding barley and other grains, but the smaller ones served to grind up such seasonings as garlic, sesame seeds and ginger. Sometimes large natural rocks were placed in the courtyard near the well and hollowed out to be used as mortars for crushing or grinding chilies. When the hollow became worn very deep after long use, it was put to use as the mortar for a much larger pestle attached to a treadle.

Two Choson Dynasty women, most likely the lady of the house and her daughter-in-law, pound chilies in a mortar. Mortars and pestles were essential implements in farming households, where they were used to grind grains, pound steamed rice into cake dough, pulverize soy beans and so on.

The pestle was thinner in the middle to make it easier to handle, yet the work was very hard physically and the technique for wielding the pestle properly had to be acquired through practice. A hollowed-out section of a log used as a mortar was a common sight at farmsteads around the Korean countryside until not so long ago.

Metal mortars and pestles for grinding seasonings.

Kimchee Through the Years

Throughout Korean history, there are a number of written references to the use of kimchee, the types being produced at certain times and the methods employed. Not only do these shed light on the cultural context in which kimchee is eaten, they help to trace the development of processes and the periods various ingredients were introduced. Below are listed some of the major references:

A kimchee called paktimch'ai is mentioned in Kani Pyogonbang (The Easy Way To Drive Out Epidemics), published in the 20th year of the reign of King Chungjong of Choson (1525). The passage says that adults and children alike should drink the liquid of nabak kimchee made from turnips. This is the first written reference to nabak kimchee (a watery kimchee).

Another book dating from the mid-Choson Dynasty that refers to pickled vegetables is Chubangmun. It describes yakchihi, a medicinal pickle made of eggplant cucumbers and bamboo shoots seasoned with black pepper, garlic, and green onions (the mixture is fried and then immersed in boiled soy sauce); saenggangch'im (ginger pickled in vinegar); t'imgosari (salted bracken); a kind of ch'imch'ae made with cucumbers, eggplant and radish pickled in a hot brine; and ch'ongt'aech'im, made of ch'ongt'ae beans preserved in salt. (Chilies are not mentioned, indicating that they were not yet being used.)

Umsik Timibang, a cookbook written in Hangul in about 1670 by a woman of the Andong Chang clan, contains recipes for a kimchee made of wax gourd pickled in salt, and one made by pouring warm water over wild Indian mustard leaves in a jar which was placed on a heated floor to ferment the mixture. This method is called muyom ch'imch'ae, or 'saltless fermentation/ It also includes more exotic recipes that use pickled pheasant flesh and pheasant meat, but the most popular was the nabak kimchee, an everyday kimchee that would have been served in many Korean households.

Umsik Timibang, by Lady Sokkye (1598-1680) of the Andong Chang clan, was the first cookbook written in Hangul. It includes recipes for wild Indian mustard leaf kimchee, pheasant meat kimchee and other kinds of pickled pheasant flesh, and nabak kimchee (a watery kimchee made with flat slices of radish).

Jars used for storing such seasonings as sesame salt, chili powder, and soy sauce.

Chungo Sallim Kyongje (The Expanded Countryside Economy) (c. 1766) contains the first mention of the use of chilies and chili powder in kimchee. Many of the types of kimchee mentioned are similar to those of today, indicating that contemporary types of kimchee began to establish themselves in the mid-18th century.

The recipe for saengch'i ch'imch'ae calls for cucumbers that have been peeled and julienned to be soaked in cold water. Boiled pheasant meat is sliced up like the cucumber, and both ingredients are combined in a warm brine to ferment like nabak kimchee. There are also recipes for kimchees that combine vegetables and fish or meat. Among them are saengch'i tchanjihi 'and saengch'ichihi, which use pickled cucumber fried in oil. with pheasant meat and a seasoning of soy sauce.

In 1655 a man named Sin Sok compiled a book entitled Nongga Chipsong (A Compendium for the Farming Household). It contains an almanac-like section listing dishes eaten during the various seasons of the year. Two of the foods recorded here are ch'imgwajo and ch'imjupcho. The latter is made by mixing eggplant berries and wheat bran and burying the concoction in hot horse manure for about a month. This corresponds to today's kanjangji.

Eleven different kinds of kimchee are described in the book Yorok (Important Records), dating from the late 1600s. None of them list chili peppers as an ingredient. Only kimchees made of radish, cabbage, wax gourd, bracken, ch'ongt'ae beans and other such vegetables are given, along with an explanation of tongch'imi, a watery dish made by salting radishes whole. The muyom ch'imch'ae, or 'saltless kimchee 7 described is made by immersing radish in clear water and leaving it for three to four days until a froth develops, at which point the liquid is drained off, fresh water added, and the radish allowed to ferment further.

Around 1715, Hong Man-Son wrote a book entitled Sallim Kyongje (Counstryside Economy); it had a section on cookery that contained descriptions of various types of kimchee. Most of them do not contain chilies but are made by pickling vegetables in salt or vinegar, in some cases with spices. The book introduces five kinds of kimchee called cha, a variant of cho. These cha-type kimchees consist of rice and salted and fermented fish, making them similar to the fish sikhae dishes of today.

Implements used for grinding spices. Left is a maja, used by inserting the fingers in the holes and scraping at the seasonings with the rough, rounded surface. Below, a glazed ceramic bowl with a rough interior texture.

Sallim Kyongje divides kimchee production into two categories: those that employ bland methods requiring only small amounts of salt and those that use salty methods. (The author puts cabbage kimchee in the bland category.) He also divides cucumber kimchees into two groups: the tchanji type, simply preserved in salt, and the sobagi type, in which the cucumbers are stuffed with spices and herbs. Other kimchees described in the book are Yongin oiji (a cucumber pickle), winter eggplant kimchee, abalone kimchee and oyster kimchee.

Chungbo Sallim Kyongje (The Expanded Countryside Economy), published in about 1766 at the end of the reign of King Yongjo (r. 1724-76), was written by Confucian scholar Yu Chung-lm and is an expanded version of the earlier book. It does not have a separate section on kimchee, but in the gardening chapter the author names some vegetables and mentions cho (kimchee) as a common way of processing them and chili powder as an ingredient in some kimchees

The description of radish tchanji says that it is made of radishes with their stems and leafy tops still attached, sea staghorn, pumpkin and eggplant; spiced with chilies, Japanese pepper and mustard; and immersed in garlic juice. It is similar to today's chonggak kimchee. He describes a yellow cucumber kimchee as being made by cutting three slits in each cucumber, stuffing the slits with chili powder and garlic and allowing the kimchee to ferment, a dish that resembles today's oi sobagi. This book documents the use of chilies and chili powder, and also of garlic, green onions and chives as kimchee seasonings rather than main ingredients, a further step in the development of the use of chili in kimchee.

In the forested, mountainous region of Kangwon Province, wooden crocks were developed. A section of log was hollowed out and fixed to a base. Such wooden crocks offered the advantages of easy portability and long-lasting durability. They were widely used instead of the more fragile ceramic variety. The one shown here is the largest extant wooden crock in Korea, measuring 128 cm in height and having a diameter of 80 cm. The diameter of the base is152 cm.

In olden times when one bought pickled shrimp paste (saeu chot) it came in a small crock like this. When the shrimp boats caught great quantities of shrimp at a time, they pickled them in crocks right there on board to keep them from spoiling before they could get them to market.

Since pot-bellied crocks took up too much space compared to their storage capacity, crocks shaped for more compact storage were developed. It is surmized that the circumference of the bottom was made smaller than that of the mouth so that the hands could be inserted between the crocks more easily for moving them around. Similar crocks were used for other kinds of chotkah

During this period Korean kimchee also spread to China. In Kim Chang-Op's 1712 account of his travels in that country, he says: "There was an old woman there who had immigrated from Korea and made her living by making kimchee. Her tongchimi tasted exactly like that made in Seoul." In Kyesangijong, published in 1803, the author writes: "The kimchee at the interpreter's house was made in imitation of our own and was quite good." Although we cannot be sure exactly what sort of kimchee this was, the reference provides one more piece of evidence that Korean kimchee had spread to China and gained popularity there. What is known, however, is the contemporary Chinese kimchee called Sichuan paocai that resembles Korean tongchimi. It seems that tongchimi was introduced to Sichuan by some of the Sichuanese soldiers sent to Korea to help fight off the Hideyoshi invasions during the Ming Dynasty.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, there are more and more written references to kimchee: Kyongdo Chapchi by Yu Tuk-Tae (1747-1800) gives a recipe for making sokpakchi: "Boil a broth of fermented baby shrimp paste and allow it to cool. Add radish, cabbage, garlic, chili pepper, turban shell flesh (Turbo cornutus), abalone and croaker. Store." The author says the concoction ferments to a spicy-hot flavor. Another interesting title, Imwon Simnyukchi, written by So Yu-Gu in 1872, presents a complete compendium of 19th-century Korean cookery. It divides the various kimchees into four types: omjangchae, chachae, chechae and chochae. Omjangchae includes kimchees that are usually eaten in the winter months; they are fermented in salt, brewing dregs and spices and are intended to be stored for long periods of time. Chachae and chochae are somewhat similar. Chachae kimchees are fermented in salt and rice, while chochae kimchees are made with fermented fish or shrimp paste, soy sauce, ginger, garlic, and vinegar for a salty, sour and spicy-hot flavor.

The design and special characteristics of crocks for storing kimchee vary from region to region. In such regions as Pyongan Province and Hamgyong Province, where the winters are long and cold, kimchee crocks are very large but shorter and fatter than those of the south. Those of the Hoeryong district of Hamgyong Province are known for their peculiar blueish-black color from lye added to the black glaze.

The crocks of the southern regions are generally smaller. Those of the central part of the country (Kyonggi and Chungchong provinces) are tall and slender. In Kyongsang Province (the southeastern part of the peninsula) the crocks are small and of coarse design. The crocks of southern Chungchong Province have a pleasing oval shape and a narrow mouth, while those of the Cholla provinces are short and pot-bellied.

Garlic on sale at a mid-20th-century marketplace.

In about 1934, Pang Shin-Yong, professor of home economics at Ewha Women's College, wrote Choson Yori Chepop (The Choson Cookery Book), which was revised and reissued in 1952 under the new title Uri Nara Umsik Mandunun Bop (How to Make Korean Food). The author presents modern methods of reproducing the Korean cuisine she learned from her mother, categorizing the recipes into 'winter kimchees' and 'ordinary kimchees.' This was the first book to cover kimchee-making thoroughly.

An example of a chabaegi, a broad, round ceramic bowl used for salting vegetables and mixing spices for seasoning kimchee. This multi-purpose vessel usually had handles and was also used to convey foods from one place to another in the kitchen or for washing dishes.

All these types of kimchee could be thought of as different kinds of cho, but the book sets aside a special chochae category for kimchees peculiar to Korea. Chochae and omjangchae are distinguished by the fact that chochae is eaten as is after fermenting while omjangchae is reprocessed either by washing it in water first or by adding it to another dish. In chechae the vegetables are cut up, while in chochae they are generally used whole. Chochae kimchees are meant to be kept for a long period of time and are regarded as the mainstream kimchees of Korea.

The book is fairly comprehensive and the recipes are arranged systematically by vegetable and type. Among the many radish kimchees described is tamjo, the precursor of today's tongchimi, and hwangajo, a kimchee made of radish greens. There is also a cabbage kimchee produced by the tamjopop or bland method, and a recipe for muyomji made without salt. Another useful book was Tongguk Sesigi, compiled by Hong Song-Mo in 1849; it describes the preparation of winter kimchi very clearly.

By the early 20th century, many of today's kimchees had come into existence, albeit some with minor alterations. Pang Sin-Yong's 1935 Korean cookbook, Choson Yori Chepop (The Choson Cookery Book) is the first book that gives detailed explanations, in modern terminology, of how to make kimchee. The types of kimchee identified in Chungbo Sallim Kyongje as being common are represented as mainstream varieties in this modern cookbook.

Kimchee was traditionally stored in different places depending on how long it needed to be fermented and how soon it was to be eaten. A pot of kimchee to be eaten fairly soon would be kept in the shade of the changtoktae, an outdoor raised platform. Kimchee to be eaten later in winter was kept inside a specially built storeroom, while crocks of kimchee that were expected to last till spring would be buried in the ground. The storeroom was built of a thick thatch of straw, which allowed proper ventilation while maintaining the temperature and humidity at a fairly constant level. The conical storeroom (known as a kimcheegwang or sometimes an ogari) in the picture is reminiscent of a yurt.

Chilies originally come from central Mexico and were first introduced to Europe by the Portuguese. In kimchee, chili powder helps suppress the propagation of unwanted micro-organisms. Korean chilies are only about one-third as hot as those commonly grown in other countries, but they contain about twice the amount of vitamin C and have 1.2 to 1.5 times as much sweet flavor as they do spicy-hotness.

Cultural Context

As we have seen, the overriding factor in the development of various types of kimchee is this so-called extra taste: pungency. However, it is not only the taste that counts. Koreans were - and still are - very much concerned with the visual and symbolic aspects of food.

In Korean cosmology, the Five Colors of yellow, white, black, red and green are associated with the Five Directions: blues and greens are associated with the east, reds with the south, white with the west, black with the north and yellows and browns with the center. Therefore the Five Colors are associated not only with the directions, but with the four seasons and the change of seasons; in other words, they are symbols of time as well as space. The Five Colors are rooted in the northeast Asian theory of Yin and Yang and the Five Modes of Action (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water), elements thought to compose all natural and human phenomena.

However, it is not just the sense of color that follows the principles of the Five Modes of Action; the sense of taste does too, with the corresponding flavors being spicy-hot, sweet, sour, salty and bitter. By applying the Five Modes of Action to everyday culinary matters, Koreans created a code of visual and gustatory symbols that mirrored Korean cosmology. Korean food brings together the whole spectrum of colors, shapes and tastes in a balanced harmony or a 'symphony of flavors.'

Of all traditional Korean foods, the one that exhibits this symbolism the most clearly is ohunch'ae, a vegetable dish. The o part of the name means five, and the humch'ae stands for strong herbs such as scallions, garlic and chives, plants that Korean folk tradition regards as possessing cosmic power of harmonizing and blending. At the vernal equinox, the king would grant his retainers gifts of ohunch'ae: the herbs would be arranged with the yellow one in the middle and the green, white, red and black ones placed around it in the order corresponding to east, west, south and north. The act of mixing these together and eating them represented the political concept of all the various factions on the outside being united under the king (the yellow center). Similarly, in ordinary middle-class households, ohunch'ae was eaten during the spring equinox. Here, the Five Colors and Five Flavors had a different significance: green stood for the virtue of benevolence, red for politeness, yellow for fidelity, white for righteousness and black for wisdom (the Five Cardinal Virtues), while green signified the spleen, red the lungs, yellow the heart, white the liver and black the kidneys. Thus, if one ate ohunch'ae on the day of the equinox one would acquire all Five Cardinal Virtues and enjoy good health through the balanced and harmonious functioning of all the organs of the body.

Crocks of a type called haeju dok, dating from the latter part of the Choson Dynasty. Though the shapes and other characteristics of kimchee crocks vary from region to region, they are all generally made of earthenware, mostly brown-glazed. The haeju dok, however, which come from the Kwanso region (the northwestern part of the peninsula) are unusual in that they are made of porcelain. No one is sure exactly why or when such porcelain crocks were developed, but most extant examples are from late in the Choson Dynasty. In form and decoration, they show the influence of the blue-on-white porcelain tradition; indeed, some examples seem to have been made using identical techniques. A few decades ago it was common to see small white porcelain jars and vases decorated with blue peonies sitting on the rice chest in the wooden floor of a traditional home, adding a touch of elegance to the decor, but in the Kwanso region, better-off families went so far as to have their large crocks made of porcelain. Peonies are the most common motif used on haeju dok, but other common motifs include fish and flowers.

A folk painting by an unknown artist of the Choson Dynasty. The radish was probably introduced to Korea in the 1st century BC.

The eggplant seems to have originated in southeast Asia or India and probably came to Korea via China some time before the 5th century. It is easily grown; the variety most commonly found in Korea is the long, black-purple type as pictured here.

There are many such dishes in Korean cookery. For example, shinsollo is a stew containing the Five Colors in the form of meat, fish, vegetables, stone mushrooms, walnuts, ginkgo nuts, chestnuts, pine nuts and threads of dried chili. Rainbow rice cakes have multi-colored layers reminiscent of traditional Korean striped garments. Not only are the colors and tastes combined; the sources of the various ingredients also make for a spatial mixture, as they are taken from the fields, the mountains, the sea and even the sky (fowl).

It is not only the dishes themselves that mirror this concept of Korean cosmology. It is also the way that they are eaten. At a Korean meal all the dishes are placed on the table at the same time: the rice, the soup, the vegetables, the meat, the fish and even the rice cakes or shikhye which serve as dessert. The meal is distinguished by the number of side dishes - five, seven, or more, and is consumed with a spoon and-chopsticks at the same time. The blandness of the rice counteracts the flavors of the meat and fish dishes, and the kimchee clears the palate in order to taste the next dish.

Thus it may be seen that the preparation, the dishes themselves and the consumption of the meal are part and parcel of Korean culture, belief and cosmology. It is believed that the taste of Korean food is the taste of the harmonization of heaven, earth and man. As one eats kimchee, one eats the universe, and in so doing becomes part of the universe and the universe becomes part of man. It is much more than simply sitting down for a meal!

A view of a market from more recent times. Cabbage was mentioned in Korean documents as long ago as the Koryo Dynasty, but the cabbage of that period was not popularly eaten because it was small and had a sparse core. Today's cabbage is easy to cultivate, has a pleasant taste, and pickles well, making it the predominant vegetable for use in kimchee. When someone uses the word 'kimchee', cabbage kimchee is generally implied. Cabbages with big, densely packed heads were not grown in Korea until the 1850s.