One of the Four Healthiest Foods
Can you name the four healthiest foods? One of them is kimchi, the fermented cabbage staple of Korean cooking. According to a 2005 study done by Health magazine, kimchi shares its healthiest food designation with soy, yogurt and olive oil. And people certainly believe in it. When a minor study showing that kimchi was a cure for the bird flu hit the internet, sales rose 20 percent for one East Coast supplier.
The Sacramento Bee reveals that Kimchi is so revered in Korea that it has its own museum in Seoul with plastic displays of the stuff.
Kimchi, for the uninitiated, is the national dish of Korea. Its origins go back centuries. At its most basic, it is fermented cabbage. At its hottest, it can be a sinus-cleansing sojourn in purgatory.
Kimchi is the key player in “panchan,” the multiple side dishes arrayed like steppingstones in Korean cuisine. There are endless varieties of kimchi — cabbage, turnip, radish, mustard leaf, eggplant, etc. — and most contain wincing amounts of salt and often eye-popping levels of chili pepper.
For me, kimchi is like sausage - it’s really better if I don’t see how it is made. During a recent episode of No Reservations on the Travel Channel, Anthony Bourdain oversaw the preparation of kimchi. It was placed in clay pots underground for weeks to ferment. I am going to assume what I get (and love) in my local Korean restaurant is the new stuff, not the ‘underground clay pot for weeks’ stuff. And if not, nothing bad could survive in something that hot and spicy, could it?
I’ve never had kimchi before, but the “fermenting for weeks” thing isn’t helping.