Kimchi health benefits include being packed with
Vitamin A, B and C and an excellent, if ubelievably
bad smelling antioxidant. Here is a kimchi and noodle soup.
(photo by framboise)
Kimchi, the Korean national dish, is a food so powerful, so incredible in its healing properties, that you must approach it with reverence and awe and a sense of 5000 years of Korean culture (that and a gas mask doesn't hurt either).
Kimchi is the Korean Super-Food. High in fiber, Vitamin C and beta carotene and an excellent antioxidant, Korean kimchi has been cresdited by some in helping stop the spread of disease, including SARS.
The ingredients include basically any vegetable fermented in fish juice, garlic and spices with napa cabbage being the most popular.
Kimchi is almost always eaten as a side dish, this helps to temper the dish's spiciness. So eat it with your main dish and add it to, soup, pizza, spaghetti, whatever.
The "Forrest Gump" of foods
Like the character in the movie, "fried shrimp, boiled shrimp, shrimp cocktail," just about anything can be "kimchid."
In addition to the cabbage kimchi you can eat radish kimchi, scallion kimchi, water kimchi, garlic kimchi.
The kimchi museum in Seoul lists 187 kinds of kimchi.
Kimchi = Korea
Much has been written about how Kimchi is woven into the fabric of Korean culture and it is not an understatement.
I once asked my Korean born wife what would happen if someone in Korea did not like kimchi. She gave me a puzzled look that said this was like asking what if someone dosen't like to breathe air.
And when I was in Korea we went with a tour group to the southern resort Island of Jeju, every meal the waitress would come over and ask what else we needed, and every meal the group would cry out, "more kimchi!"
History of Kimchi
You cannot understate the importance of kimchi to Koreans. They will even cite it as a reason their country has remained independent despite thousands of years of invasions from China and Japan. And they may be right. Because this stuff stinks. Like fermented socks. But that only makes it more enticing to Koreans.
Most devotees will tell you the more fermented, the more sour, the better. A kimchi devotee will dismiss you with a wave of their hand and a look of contempt when you say this stuff stinks, for them it's like roses in bloom, but believe me, it's not for the faint hearted.
But don't let that dissuade you from enjoying the health benefits of kimchi.
In fact, I make it a test of my courage to eat the stuff when it's at its ripest. It is spicy and stinky and salty but I actually can feel myself getting healthier after eating it.
Comments
Yup! Koreans can't live without Kimchee. My father-in-law once joked "If you want to torture Koreans, lock them up and do not give Kimchee!"
There are so many variety and different tastes of Kimchee. It smells stinky to Non-Koreans but it smells delicious to us! Kimchee is Soul food I must say and it is so unique. If you can't digest spicy food (I mean, most of Kimchee taste hot because of hot red peppers but there are some Kimchee without hot pepper but it is heavily sesoned with garlics), stay away from it! Instead, enjoy different dishes such as Kimchee pancake, Kimchee Dumpling, Kimchee soup, Kimchee fried rice etc....
Please be careful of the kinds of folksy hearsay you post about kimchi. Kimchi has also been consistently linked in independent medical studies (ie not done by Koreans under nationalistic fervor)with stomach and other cancers. I live and work in Korea and I find among students it seems already to have done some damage given the disproportionate stomach problems among the young, teenagers and everybody else.
I like kimchi but I also like being healthy. A moderate few times a week is fine but eat
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