A Korean saying goes that trees live on water and men on kimchi.
To that extent kimchi is an indispensable subsidiary food in the Korean people’s diet.
Nowadays when last leaves fall, every household in the capital city of Pyongyang makes kimchi.
The family of Han Chun Nam in Sochon-dong, Sosong District, is busy preparing kimchi.
Han’s daughter sterilizes a large earthenware jar, his wife is absorbed in cleaning bok choy pickled in salt in the previous day and he brings out even a small pot and jar as the wife says she intends to prepare white kimchi and watery radish kimchi as well as seasoned kimchi.
The next-door woman has come to help them with preparing kimchi as before.
It is a traditional custom that neighbours or relatives help one another with preparing the food.
Saying that her family already finished preparing kimchi, she has brought seasonings flavoured with salted shrimp and fruits of Zanthoxylum piperitum unlike last year.
Han’s wife Thae Myong Hwa made seasonings to be mixed with the pickled vegetables by slicing walleye pollack and flatfish and putting the slices in the red seasonings mixed with much pepper powder to suit the tastes of her family members.
Soon afterwards the women put the seasonings between the leaves of the drained vegetables and pile them in the large jar.
Han’s mother puts a handful of perilla stems in the jar along with the vegetables at intervals and she says that the perilla stems make kimchi more fragrant.
After filling the jar with kimchi and covering them with outer leaves to prevent air from getting in it, Thae says that a few days later she will pour in water which has almost the same salty taste as the pickled vegetable and place a stone over the outer leaves lest the vegetables should float in the kimchi juice.
Then she begins to prepare watery radish kimchi with the help of the next-door woman who is good at doing it.
Various kinds of kimchi that make mouth water at the first sight of it with the harmonious taste of fermented seasonings and refreshing spices are subsidiary foods stimulating appetite at every home throughout winter.
Now methods of preparing various kinds of kimchi are often introduced on TV.
Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un pays congratulatory visit to Kim Il Sung Military University
Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s
April 26, 2024
Kim Jong Un, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea and president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s
