NOV20

Classroom lesson Ā· Food Ā· šŸ‡°šŸ‡µ North Korea

Kimchi

Korea's famous fermented vegetable dish, eaten at almost every meal

Photo Ā· Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Kimchi is a traditional Korean food made from vegetables ā€” most often cabbage ā€” that have been salted and then mixed with spices and left to ferment. Fermentation means friendly bacteria slowly transform the vegetables, making them tangy, complex and full of flavour. Kimchi originated on the Korean peninsula and is eaten at almost every meal across Korean culture.

Tell me more

Making kimchi begins with salting the cabbage to draw out moisture, then rinsing it and mixing it with a paste of chilli, garlic, ginger, spring onions and other flavourings. The mixture is packed into jars or pots and left to ferment for anything from one day to several years. Older kimchi has a deeper, sourer flavour.

There are hundreds of varieties of kimchi. Baechu kimchi uses napa cabbage and is the most common. Kkakdugi uses cubes of radish. Some kimchi is white with no chilli, some is fiery red. In different seasons, different vegetables are used ā€” spring brings fresh green kimchi, winter brings the classic red-cabbage style.

Traditionally, families made a whole year's supply of kimchi together in a big community event in late autumn called 'kimjang'. Neighbours helped each other chop, mix and pack hundreds of cabbages. UNESCO recognises kimjang as an important intangible cultural heritage.

Kimchi is now eaten and made around the world, but it began on the Korean peninsula many centuries ago. Scientists have found that fermented vegetables similar to kimchi were eaten in Korea as far back as 2,000 years ago. Today it is one of the best-known Korean foods globally.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Kimchi ferments slowly over days or years. What other foods are made by a slow process ā€” bread, cheese, yogurt? What do they all have in common?
  2. 02Kimjang is a big community cooking event where neighbours help each other. Do you have any community food traditions in your area?
  3. 03Kimchi tastes more sour the longer it ferments. Do you prefer strong or mild flavours? Can you think of another food that changes taste as it ages?
Try this

Classroom activity

Create a 'Kimchi flavour timeline' poster: draw jars of kimchi at Day 1, Week 1, Month 1 and Year 1. Write or draw how the colour, smell and taste might change at each stage. Use descriptive words like tangy, sour, fizzy, crunchy.

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