Speaking of South Korea, a lot of South Koreans are unhappy about their ultra-pungent national dish–kimchi–being subverted by their Communist neighbor to the north. No, not North Korea. The BIG one: China.
Turns out, China is making cheap kimchi and undercutting the South Korean market for the food. They’re also threatening South Korea’s main export market for kimchi, which is in Japan.
I sympathize with the South Koreans. If a highly obnoxious nation–say, France–was dumping cheap hotdogs on the American market and threatening our main hotdog export markets (if we have any) then I’d be mad, too!
(This story reminds me: I haven’t had kimchi in a while. It’s probably fairly compatible with my diet, so maybe I’ll check that out.)
What is kimchi?
Hi Jimmy! Funny post; I agree with you, especially since I’m South Korean.
In response to Billy’s question on what Kimchi is: Kimchi is cabbage mixed with ground red pepper, garlic, sugar, salt, and other spices/seasonings. It is usually allowed to ferment before eaten to give it the right flavor. You can make Kimchi with many other vegetables also, such as turnips.
Kimchi and rice are the two things served with just about every korean dish. Kimchi is so important to Korean culture that Korean appliance companies have designed special “Kimchi refrigerators” to store it. These refrigerators keep the temperature at exactly a couple degrees above freezing. This maximizes the shelf-life of the Kimchi, allowing a family to store a huge batch for a long time without it spoiling. It also prevents Kimchi from freezing, since freezing food usually decreases the quality.
It takes a little getting used to, but can be very tasty with the right food to complement it. When I was younger, I didn’t really like it, but as I grew older I began to appreciate it much more along with the rest of my Korean heritage.
In my freshman year of college I had 3 other roommates sharing a two-room dorm. One of them was Korean. His parents were always sending him care packages of great tasting food which he always shared with us. Then they sent him this jar of kimchi. He had it in the refrigerator in the room farthest away from the outer hall. You could still smell it in the hall. The rooms themselves were almost unlivable. We made him throw it out. 🙂
Fighting over ROTTEN CABBAGE….wow…I could understand war over salmon fishing rights, grazing lands, or caviar fish stocks, but rotten cabbage….
He he, it goes well with ground up cow intestines in a bun though.
“Fighting over ROTTEN CABBAGE….”
There’s a difference between fermented food and rotten food.
“wow…I could understand war over”
So Korea declared war over this? This is news to me.
Please learn some manners before you go around spouting off your judgments. Learn about other cultures besides the tiny little sheltered world you live in. If this was an attempt at humor, I have to say it was offensive and pathetic.