김치의 역사 History of Kimchi

Kimchi is so famous food from Korea

But most of people doesn't know about origin of it

Even Koreans!

This time lets learn about kimchi's history

Actually its hard to tell when kimchi's origin started

The origin of a Kimchi's name is 침채 (沈菜) which mean pickled vegetables

According it if we think of kimchi as a salted vegetable, its first record was in records of three kingdoms written in the 3rd century

It says 고구려 (Goguryeo, one of the oldest Korean kingdom) people eats salted vegetables

It goes on and on in other records too

And original form of Kimchi was made of radish

Its still remaining with other name, 동치미 (Dongchimi)

동치미

동치미 is result of transformation from 동침 (冬沈) which mean 침채 in winter

And other types of kimchi appeared during the Goryeo Dynasty

People made many kimchi with many types of vegetables

For example 물김치 (kimchi with salty water), 나박김치 (sliced radish kimchi)

But they were still white salted radish

Because there was no napa cabbage and chili pepper yet

The first time chili pepper came to Korea was during Japanese Invasion of Korea in 1592

Japanese people traded with Portuguese and they brought it from America and brought to Korea during war!

But Korean people thought its toxic plants so didn't eat for long time

After 20years finally Korean people used it for foods

And there was sad story about why Korean people put pepper in kimchi

In 1670 and 1671 there was great famine in Korea that 1milion people died

There was no time to make salt so people but pepper instead of salt and mixed anything they could get

For example Southern west of Korea they put 젓갈 which means salted seafoods and amino acid made kimchi more delicious

So people from there still putting in kimchi

And people in other area also liked mixed kimchi with other food like garlic, pepper and onion

Finally kimchi became similar to what it looks like today

But still it's made of radish

Then when people started using napa cabbage for kimchi?

People started farm napa cabbage since 1850s people didn't use them for kimchi

Cabbage kimchi appeared on recipe book late 1800s

And some foreigners left records about cabbage kimchi at late 1800s

But cabbage was expensive vegetable so it was not popular for normal people

Only some rich people made cabbage kimchi other people mixed with radish or just used radish only

And after Korean war there was no space for pepper in farm for growing other common vegetables so kimchi became a white again about 15years

There was person who changed it, Dr. Jang-chun Woo the biologist

He made many new vegetables including cabbage

He's research was so amazing some people said he could get a Novel prize if he lived longer

Anyways his cabbage was very productive so finally red cabbage kimchi looks like now days kimchi become a major kimchi

The Kimchi that people know is actually only 60 years old!

Kimchi is younger than my grandma

These days people trying to make new types of kimchi

If u search vegetable + kimchi there must be at least one like pineapple kimchi, avocado kimchi....

There are so many types of kimchi Korean people plays 'kimchigame' rule is simple if you type random kimchi on google like apple kimchi and if it exist, you have to drink 1 cup of soju

What about make your own kimchi?

Its eazy and healthy ez