Asia Sentinel

Korea’s national dish kimchi has officially been around at least since the Shilla Dynasty of the Three Kingdoms, which spanned the period from the second century AD to the seventh. Some authorities say it might have been around even longer, going back to when cabbage was first introduced on the Korean peninsula perhaps 4,000 years ago.

So finally, after thousands of years of peppery existence, the Korean government says it has found it necessary to establish a scientific five-point scale to rate the pickled cabbage dish’s spiciness.

Kimchi, along with ginseng and shoju, is closer to a national religion than a food. The average citizen eats somewhere between 10 and 15 kilograms a year of the substance although nobody is quite sure whether it’s a pickle or a salad. Whatever it is, it’s usually on every table, providing accompaniment to a traditional Korean meal of soup, meat and rice.

Made with garlic, ginger, scallions and chillies mixed into cabbage and fermented, kimchi recipes were traditionally handed down from family to family as newly-tested brides were sent into the kitchen to learn how to make it from their mothers-in-law, with every family proud of its own variation.

But starting in the 1960s, when Korean troops were sent to join American troops in the Vietnam War, homemade kimchi was not always available. The Korean government set out to create a kind of industrial kimchi for homesick soldiers who presumably would fight better on kimchi than on American C-rations so the first batches were shipped and served to ROK soldiers in Vietnam in 1966

While tinned kimchi was created during the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, the Vietnam production appears to have been the first mass production of kimchi on an industrial scale. But as Korea’s domestic industrialization began to pick up speed, and wives left the kitchen for electronics and auto factories, the centuries-old tradition of handmade, homemade kimchi, with its regional and familial variations, began to disappear. Where previous generations once joined together for what was called Gimjang, an annual gathering to make kimchi to ferment and store in the earthenware jars that were once seen everywhere in Seoul and to perpetuate the family’s recipe, that tradition has diminished.

Consequently, much kimchi today is made in factories. Although special containers and refrigerators have been developed to allow modern women to make it in smaller batches, the practice of making homemade kimchi is a victim of changing times. Although there are believed to be something like 100 different varieties, industrial kimchi has devolved into three basic types: freshly-packed salad-type, refrigerated pickled and pasteurized shelf-stable kimchi. As much as a half-million tons are produced every year in South Korea, and probably about as much in North Korea, although the north’s kimchi statistics tend to be a bit incomplete, like most everything else up there.

But if kimchi is hot, how hot is it? According to Seoul’s Joong Ang Daily, Korea’s Agriculture Ministry said its kimchi benchmark would rank the pickled delicacy as mild, slightly hot, moderately hot, very hot and extremely hot, based on research by the Korea Food Research Institute. The heat index is based on the amount of capsaicin and other substances contained in the chili peppers that make kimchi hot.

The government also said kimchi will be further categorized into three levels of ripeness depending on the degree of fermentation, from non-fermented to over-fermented.

Previously there was no way to judge the condition of manufactured kimchi. The government said it would encourage local manufacturers to adopt the standards and will consider regulations at a later date, the newspaper said.

So will it work? Koreans take their kimchi seriously. “The power of kimchi is the power of peaceful, prosperous people who smile while working, instead of laughing at work. Because theirs is an ancient wisdom, Koreans have had an immense opportunity to note what is sound and what is likely to be of enduring value,” according to the AsiaInfo website.

And, the website adds, Koreans bringing out the cameras don’t say “cheese” when attempting to coax a smile from their subjects. They say “kiiiimchi.”

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