Did You Ever Eat Kimchi?

I spend 2 1/2 years in South Korea and have eaten Kimchi many times. There is "old" kimchi that has been buried in the ground for months and it can stink to high heaven. The first time I smelled it was when I was assuming command of a station and was inspecting our buildings. One of the Korean employees had an open container of it upstairs inside a refrigerator. Still the smell was overpowering. I never ate any of the real old stuff, but I did eat a fair amount of more recent stuff and the very newest that they call "spring kimchi" which is actually pretty good.

Kimchi has a lot of garlic and cayenne in it and after fermentation it is loaded with probiotics that may explain why Koreans typically do not catch colds. (Or no self respecting bacteria or virus will go anywhere near it.) It can be extremely hot.
If you ride a local Korean bus, try to sit next to an open window where you can get some fresh air.

The orphanage we sponsored served a lot of the old kimchi for breakfast so you didn't want to go out there too early in the morning. Oddly enough, the orphans regarded Mexican food as too hot when we took them to the on-base clubs for a treat.

When our aircraft carriers pulled into port, they typically gave us many pallets of donated food for our local orphanages. One thing that the orphans would not eat was dark colored beans unless they were mashed up, otherwise they complained that they looked like goat poop.
 

Peel paint? Nonsense! Dave loves kimchi. I've eaten it and I don't really enjoy it. It looks spicy but it's not. That red Korean pepper is not hot at all. Dave makes a cucumber thing with it that's really tasty. I do enjoy many Korean foods. Pickled daikon radish is one of my faves. We make galbi and bulgoki at home. When we eat at a Korean restaurant, I like to order Bi Bim Bop.
 
jujube said:
I like it, but the last time I had it was at a midnight buffet on a cruise ship. I know, bad idea. Believe me, I paid for it between 2 and 3 a.m. I think I'm ready to try it again...maybe.
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Update: I now love kimchi. Not something I'd have routinely for breakfast, no...….but it really makes the tastebuds stand up and yell 만세!!!
 
I've tried it half a dozen times at Korean restaurants. It's the one thing I don't care for (but we really like Korean food, in general). Never found any kimchi I liked. But everyone needs to try Haemuljeon.
 
CarolfromTX said:
"..... We make galbi and bulgoki at home....."..
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Love to see people cook 'exotic' dishes. I cook, but have never tried cooking Korean. I have a nephew who married a Korean, but they live out of state. I would love to spend an afternoon with her and have her show me how to cook some good Korean dishes (not Kimchi).
 
Certainly. No different than sauerkraut or homemade pickles.

Some people prefer it on the milder side, while others prefer it on the more fermented, more sour side. Aging mellows out the flavor tremendously - when done properly it's excellent.

Acidic foods are useful as you age - they help promote "good" gut bacteria.
 
My last batch of kimchi, made with regular green cabbage turned out pretty good, and I have eaten about half of the jar now and moved it to a pint jar instead of the quart jar.
This morning, I started another quart of it, and this time, I added some apple and bok choy, to see how that turns out. This batch has a little more of the red pepper and garlic in it, too; so it will have a little more heat to the taste.

My sauerkraut is doing good also and when I get it about halfway eaten, then I will start another quart of it. I know that I need to have probiotics, and this is a great way to get them.
I don’t wear gloves nor a face mask, @SeaBreeze ; but I suppose it might depend on what all a person put into their kimchi. I think that it was mostly to add drama to the television procedure though.
 
Today, I am having rice and kimchi, and this is the one with the apple and bok choy. This one has regular cabbage and not the thinner Napa cabbage that usually goes in kimchi, and I like this better, and it is crunchy.
I haven’t tried putting any fish sauce in my kimchi, although many recipes do call for the addition of a little bit. I read about it, and it is made with fermented anchovies.
I am still not sure if I would like it or not, but the next time I go to the Korean store, I am going to ask the lady who owns it what would be a good brand to try for a first time experiment.
The dark peppery-looking stuff on top is kelp granules.


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The one time I tried it, it was too hot. Otherwise, what flavor I could discern through the burn was tasty. Maybe I'll read the lable next time and get a mider one. Or rinse it a little.
 
RadishRose said:
Why not for breakfast Jujube?
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I remember what a shock it was to me as a teenager, sailing on the old Queen Elizabeth, when I was served pickled herrings on a bed of chopped onion for breakfast. That was so far from my Midwestern semi-country girl's idea of a breakfast item as to be unthinkable.

While my taste has become quite a bit more cosmopolitan, I'm still not going to eat kimchi for breakfast. I have to draw the line somewhere. And as much as I have come to love pickled herrings, I'm not eating them for breakfast, either.
 
jujube said:
I remember what a shock it was to me as a teenager, sailing on the old Queen Elizabeth, when I was served pickled herrings on a bed of chopped onion for breakfast. That was so far from my Midwestern semi-country girl's idea of a breakfast item as to be unthinkable.

While my taste has become quite a bit more cosmopolitan, I'm still not going to eat kimchi for breakfast. I have to draw the line somewhere. And as much as I have come to love pickled herrings, I'm not eating them for breakfast, either.
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Thanks Jujube. I just have this lifetime curiosity as to why "breakfast" holds certain rules over us.
 
It really helped me to learn to make my own kimchi, and then I can alter the ingredients and fermenting time to find what works best for me.
I didn’t like how squishy the Napa cabbage gets, but I like it much better with regular cabbage. I liked the bok choy better than I did adding kale, and I do not use as much of the red pepper as some recipes call for. As I get used to eating it, I will probably evolve it into something a little bit hotter.
I also like that I can start tasting it a bit each day to see when I want to stop the ferment and refrigerate the kimchi. It is simple to make. Here is a basic recipe, but YouTube has lots of them.

 
Kimchi? Yes, I've tried it, or at least smelled it. No, it's not for me, not ever again. I may be the only one on the planet, but ...
 


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