Day 118

GIMJANG (KIMCHI-MAKING) DAY

Kimchi is the national food of Korea.  It's served at every meal, it's healthy, and it actually goes well with a lot of other foods.  What is kimchi?

These are all types of kimchi!
Photo by Joel McConvey for The Walrus magazine.

Kimchi is a combination of fermented vegetables, red chili peppers, and a seafood-based sauce.  The type of vegetable varies depending on the type, but the most common variety is 'baechu kimchi,' made with Napa cabbage (baechu) and the chili/seafood sauce mix.  In the summer, white radish kimchi soup and cucumber kimchi soup are both common.  There are hundreds of varieties, and not all of them are spicy.

Cucumber kimchi.
Photo and recipe by Soomeenshee.

White radish kimchi (mool kimchi) is watery, tart, and served cold in the summer.
Photo by Naomi Imatome Yun.

But that's not all!  You don't have to eat kimchi alone.  It goes surprisingly well with an equally surprising number of other foods.  I've tried kimchi fried rice, kimchi ramen, and I've seen (but not tasted) kimchi porridge.  I've seen recipes for kimchi grilled cheese, and a coworker once made kimchi-tuna arepas that were delicious.

Kimchi grilled cheese from a food truck in Hollywood, FL.  I know what I'm having for lunch today!
Taken by Carlos at foodspotting.com

Kimchi tuna arepas with melted american slices (I refuse to call it cheese) and tomatoes!
These looked and sounded weird but were actually really delicious, I had two!

Anyone who hasn't tasted kimchi before is probably wondering, "So what's the deal with kimchi?  Why do people like these hot rotting veggies?"  That's what I wanted to know before I came to Korea.  Before hopping on a plane to Seoul, my sole experience with Korean food was a high school teacher who brought in his homemade kimchi that he had buried in his backyard in a tupperware container for several months.  Yikes.

Kimchi actually has a long and rich history!  It was originally made with cabbage and beef stock, and has existed for thousands of years in that form.  Red chili peppers, which are ubiquitous in Korea, weren't introduced until the Japanese Invasions of the 1500's.  They caught on quickly, and red pepper paste and/or flakes are used in pretty much every food in this country.

Red pepper powder.  This is actually from H-mart, an American grocery chain that caters to Asian markets.
Photo by momofukufor2.

Many Koreans, especially here in Chuncheon, grow their own stock of red chili peppers on any land they can find.
Then they dry them, often on the sidewalk or in public spaces.  No biggie, apparently.
Photo by John Stenberg.

Koreans originally depended on kimchi during the winter to provide them with a source of food and vitamins.  Families would gather together for a period called "gimjang" and make an enormous supply of kimchi to last them through the winter months.  Fresh kimchi was placed into a kimchi pot and then buried underground, where they don't take up much space.  Today kimchi can be bought at the store, but many families continue the tradition of making it at home with the family.  Kimchi pots are still buried in some places, but in cities people have a special kimchi refrigerator, because kimchi stuff is STINKY and will make everything smell/taste like kimchi.

Kimchi pots come in a range of sizes, depending on your kimchi needs.
Photo by Gapunzel@flickr.com.

Why is it fermented?  Fermentation is a process that not only preserves foods but actually makes them healthier.  Decomposition and fermentation are similar processes with very different products.  It's the difference between spoiled milk and cheese, between pickles and rotted cucumbers.  Decomposition requires putrefactive bacteria, which break down the matter into inedible and smelly components.  Fermentation requires active cultures, such as those found in yogurt, and breaks down the matter into smaller, more easily digestible components.  It also helps pack foods with more biotin, nicotinic acid, riboflavin, thiamine and vitamin B12, among other vitamins.

So, in short, fermentation:
- preserves food without spoiling it
- makes it easier to digest
- packs it with healthy vitamins

Fermentation is trending these days, and studies show that eating kimchi (which is chock-full of lactic acid bacteria) is even healthier and better for your digestive system than eating yogurt.  Any vegetable can be fermented if you do it properly.

Now, back to gimjang.  Gimjang is the process of making kimchi.  It's generally done once a year, which means that a family's entire supply of kimchi for the next year is made in one day.  I was fortunate enough to be invited to gimjang day with a coworker's family!  It was messy, smelly, and delicious.  Upon arrival at our coworker's parents' house, we were given work clothes.

Proper kimjang clothes.  I'm wearing ajumma clothes (ajummas = old Korean ladies).
Unfortunately for Juan, they didn't have any ajumma clothes for him.  They're SO comfy!

My coworker's mother-in-law had already done most of the preparation before we arrived.  She made the kimchi sauce--which is insanely complicated and has tons of ingredients.  Each ajumma has her own special recipe.  Most young people have never made the sauce, and most don't participate in kimjang day.  They simply rely on their parents to make it for them!

That is a LOT of sauce.  And we're going to use all of it.

Koreans are extremely dependent on their parents--which isn't a criticism, it actually seems pretty awesome.  Families seem closer on average in Korea than they do in America.  Kids live with their parents until they get married, even if that means until they're in their late thirties.  Parents live near or even with their kids, and help take care of the grandkids.  Some of my students have siblings that live full-time with the grandparents.  It's an interesting family dynamic, and is definitely reminiscent of the old adage about taking a village to raise a child.

That said, most of my coworkers don't know some simple things, like where to buy trash bags, because their parents buy those items.  So there are a few cons to this system.

Anyway, back to gimjang.  The two things we need now are the chili-sauce and the cabbages.  The cabbages are soaked in a brine (saltwater) solution, which makes them salty and limp.  The salt allows the cabbages to ferment rather than simply rot.  Many families do gimjang outside because it's messy, but our family covered the floor in newspaper and a tarp.

That's not all the cabbages, just the first tub.

Action pose, Juan!   Everybody gets an empty tub.

Next we sit, scoop a glob of sauce into our individual tubs, and add a few cabbages.  We get big rubber gloves because this is messy business!  Each individual leaf must be separated and coated in sauce.  Use too much sauce and the kimchi will be too salty.  Use too little sauce and it will taste bland.  Juan and I were definitely feeling the pressure to not screw up a family's entire kimchi supply for the next year, so we worked hard.

The raw ingredients.

Getting to work!

Saucing up the cabbage is a lot like painting.  I was told that I was a natural but that could have just been them being nice.  It was relaxing!

Natural or not, I think I did okay.

The saucy cabbages are carefully stacked into the black bins, which are lidded and placed in the special kimchi fridge to ferment.  Because trust me, they are STINKY.

The floor was heated, which was nice.  My motto is "a warm bum is the secret to a happy life."

Our sauce supply is dwindling!

Once we ran out of cabbages, we still had some sauce left over.  We threw anything and everything in. Frankly I'm not sure what most of it was.  I know one tub made fresh kimchi with the fallen-off bits of cabbage and fresh raw oysters.  We got a bag of that to take home, and a Korean pear!   Yum!

Noodles?  I have no idea.

Bagging up some fresh kimchi for us helpful waygukin (foreigners)!

After making kimchi, we were treated to an amazing home-cooked meal: slow-cooked fatty pork and a mudfish soup.  Mudfish soup is a special delicacy, apparently, and my coworker's mother-in-law was up all night making it.  While I thought the pork was incredible, I wasn't a fan of the special soup, mostly because it had ground-up bits of fish bones in it.

It was an excellent day and I'm happy to report that our takeaway kimchi is delicious.  I don't have a dedicated separate kimchi fridge, and I wasn't about to put the kimchi in with the rest of my food, so it's currently sitting between the outer and inner windows of my kitchen, where it'll stay nice and cold.  I'm so thankful to my coworker and his family for giving us such a cool cultural experience!  Now I just need to learn to make some sauce and I'll be able to make my own kimchi when I get home... maybe.

One week to go until I meet my family in Fiji.  Soon this blog will return to its roots: fish, algae, and nudibranch photos.  I can't wait!


Cheers,

Ashton

Day 112

It's here.  The post my grandmother has been waiting for.  It's time for...

KOREAN COSTCO

Costco is fabulous.  It's the best corporation on the planet.  Not only does Costco sell everything from cheese to yoga pants to coffins, they also treat their employees pretty well and operate in eight countries.  Korea has eight Costco warehouses, four of which are in Seoul.  (Rumor has it a ninth is opening soon, most likely in Seoul.  A quarter of Korea's population lives in Seoul, you know!)

Costco!

At first everything looks great.  The membership cost is lower; $55 in the USA, but just ₩30,000 (about $27) in Korea.  But don't be fooled by the multistory and perpetually crowded exterior.  Unfortunately, Korean Costco is not as awesome as American Costco.  Korean Costco's products are more expensive and the selection is significantly poorer.  However, the real benefit here isn't in the bulk-buying savings.  Instead, Korean Costco serves mainly as a foreign food depot for homesick Westerners.

So what does Korean Costco have to offer?

A fine selection of fine cheeses!

Costco sells cheese and deli meats, which are both nigh impossible to find in Korea except for in foreign food stores.  Small amounts of cheese can be purchased at some grocery stores, but are insanely expensive.  I can even get bratwurst and sausages here!  So delicious.

Oh sweet cheddar and mozzarella!

Oh heeeey sausages, sliced turkey!

Korean Costco also has an incredible selection of seafood.  Korea is really serious about seafood.

Yep, mussels (or something) in seawater.

Lots of sashimi (raw fish on rice), no sushi (raw fish and rice in a seaweed roll).

Buy a whole octopus!

Or a few squids!

The fruit and vegetable selection didn't impress me much in the summer.  It seemed like Costco sold all the same stuff as the normal stores, and at the same prices.  Now that it's winter, the game has changed. Koreans have a strange love-hate relationship with foreign products.  They love foreign stuff because it's cool and exotic (and expensive) but at the same time they also feel a strong need to buy Korean-made products.  Electronics and produce are the two major industries in Korea that are dominated by domestic goods.  The Korean peninsula has basically the same climate as Michigan, which means that there's not much in the way of fruit in winter.

Costco imports a lot of its products, including fruit.  So now that it's winter, Costco is the best source of affordable fruit.  Two avocados costs about $12 at my local grocery store, but I can get five for $11 at Costco.  I eat a lot of guacamole and salmon-avocado sushi, so I go through a lot of avocados.  I can also get the giant bag of Kirkland tortilla chips, which is fabulous because Korea seems to think that those round flat yellow discs (the ones that come with that hot fake cheese) are real tortilla chips.  They are not.

Nectarines!  Costco might be the only place in Korea with these.

Don't forget that this is Korean Costco, so they've also got some distinctly Korean products.  Among them are fish-flavored chips (disgusting), meat sauces, dried fish... and frankly a lot of things I know nothing about.

Not sure what this is, but I guess it's healthy?

Big bag of very small dried fish.

Cereal is pretty ubiquitous in Korea, but finding real American brands and not their Korean knockoffs is hard.  Thank goodness for Costco.

These are really hard to find outside of Costco!

Real cornflakes (not the sugary kind though), and I'm not sure what the lego-looking thing is.

Post cereal!

Costco is the only sensible place to buy butter and cream cheese in Korea.  At the grocery stores you'll pay this much for a 200g taste.

OH HEYYYY COSTCO COOKIES AND MUFFINS!  Costco is the only place to get muffins and soft cookies.  There's lots of rock-hard flavorless cookies here... Koreans seem to be very interested in how their baked goods look and less concerned with how they taste.

Sometimes you need a soft cookie.

Korean Costco's muffins aren't as sweet as the American ones, but they are starting to taste normal to me.  Koreans use a lot less sugar than Americans.

Delicious and so affordable!!!

Less affordable are nuts.  Nuts are so expensive in Korea, and Costco is no exception.  A bag of trail mix costs about $12 in the USA, but here it's $25.  Yikes!

Trail mix, I'll miss you.

And now for the real reason I go to Costco... the snacks.  It's different than the American Costco range, not as diverse, but offers a more international selection.  You can get Tim Tams, for example.

Cheese puffs!  Goldfish!

Animal crackers, the best in the world!

I don't even know.

Gummi bears, mostly.

More gummies.

Marshmallows and... more gummies?!

Expensive, but available.

Chocolate-covered raisin and almonds and cherries for cheap!  Peanut butter cups for not-so-cheap!

OH-REE-OHHHHHS.

Werther's.

Fruit By The Foot!  Expensive, though.

One more thing of note: Korean Costco is INSANELY BUSY.  I took the advice of a coworker and was there when it opened at 8am on a Saturday.  This is what the place looked like at about 8:15am.  Within an hour, it was so crowded that I could barely get through the aisles.  On another Costco trip with a friend in the afternoon, we abandoned the cart altogether and ended up waiting nearly 45 minutes at the checkout.  Koreans LOVE Costco, and they pack in like sardines in a can.

If you go, go as early as possibly.  Seoul locations are open 8am-10pm and 8am-6pm on Sunday.  Other locations open at 9am and close at the same times.

Blissful, peaceful emptiness.  It won't last more than a few minutes.

Even at 9:15, there was a line for the escalator.  Did I mention that Korean Costco is two levels?
Non-food items on top, foodstuffs on the bottom.

A short list of things not pictured that Costco also sells that ARE worth buying:
- corndogs and churros
- bags of frozen fruit
- ice cream
- BAAAACOOOOOON!!!  (Bacon.)
- frozen seafood, chicken breasts, and burgers
- plain yogurt (impossible to find elsewhere!)
- whipped cream (only light, unfortunately for fatties like me)
- wine, soju, and a few other alcoholic beverages
- cleaning supplies
- pancake/waffle mix
- peanut butter, jelly, and honey
- oatmeal (can't find it anywhere else)


Things NOT worth buying:
- clothes --> they're so expensive!
- electronics --> not cheap, and K-Costco has a 30-day return policy on electronics (90 days in the USA)
- skin/bath products --> same prices at regular stores (with the exception of Q-tips)
- bread (unless you eat 5-10 sandwiches a day)


Things that are outright missing:
- my favorite snacks (reeses, twizzlers, fruit snacks, and skittles.)
- some fruits (no strawberries or limes!)
- baking supplies (they sell flour, but no chocolate chips)
- a half-decent electronics selection
- a WEBSITE.  The Korean Costco website tells you where they are located... and that's it.
- clothes in Western adult sizes (all the clothes are Asian size)

I bet you thought I was being a racist when I said all the clothes were Asian sized, didn't you?

And last but not least: the food court.  In America, Costco food is delicious, cheap, and fast.  It's still cheap here, but somewhat lacking in the departments of delicious and fast.

I got the hot dog set.  Cheap... but not super delicious.

Much like the subway, Koreans pack into the food court so tightly that I'm 100% sure it violates fire safety codes.  They line their carts up along the wall--stealing isn't much of an issue here, which is really nice--and cram whole families in to one two-seater table.

This is a slow day at the Korean Costco food court.  Notice how many people are standing to eat?

Another popular thing to do: put your kid in a cart and let them fall asleep.  Among your other items.  Carts here do have the child seat, but I have yet to see a single person use it.  Korean parents are startlingly unaware of the potential dangers of crushing one's child.  What's more, remember how I said they park the carts and leave them unattended?  Yeah, they do that with the kids inside too.  There were five or six sleeping children in carts last time I was there.

This isn't actually Costco, this is Lotte Mart.  Note the smaller cart size.
The cart isn't full yet--mama is still packing on the groceries.

Same kid, about to be harshly awoken by a pizza to the face.

This is actually at the Costco checkout.  They're about to start burying their children in bulk food products.
Kid on the right it sleeping, and he's already got a few items shoved in with him.

For all I know, they bought this at Costco.  Dogs are less of pets and more like dolls here, so
it's entirely possible.  Then again, if they DID buy it at Costco, it'd probably come in a three-pack.

Anyway, back to Korean Costco's food court.  They have most of the normal food court stuff--pizza, hot dogs, corndogs, smoothies--but also a few special Korean items.  One such item is the bulgogi bake, which sounds good but tastes like a hobo's butt.

Bulgogi should be delicious... this tasted like greasy, overcooked stale dogfood.

We both took one bite and immediately felt ill.  I made him throw the rest away.
I can't imagine anyone liking this, let alone being able to finish it without vomiting.

We also saw this phenomenon in the food court: chopped onions with mustard and relish.  That's right, it's a side dish.  That yellowish mass is just onions, mustard, and relish.  Honest.  I watched him make it.

This has been posted on my blog before but it's weird enough to be deserving of a review.

I think that about sums up the Korean Costco experience.  There's just one more thing you have to see to believe:

Koreans are in love with Spam... but only because they think Americans love it.
I'm trying to spread the truth, that we think it's a disgusting sham of a ham.  (Har har har... but seriously.  Ew.)

That's right, Spam gift set.  Don't worry, I just threw up a little too.  It's the normal, appropriate reaction.


Until next time,

- Ashton / 애쉬톤