the efficacy of using spices and fermented fish paste in addition to fish or meat as appropriate, the kinds of kimchees commonly found today gradually came into being.
Rice is always served in Korean households along with vegetable, meat or fish dishes and the ubiquitous kimchee.
Defining Kimchee
The earliest record of kimchee is in China's oldest collection of poetry, the Book of Odes, which was written nearly 3,000 years ago. The section entitled 'Xiao Ya' contains a stanza: "On the bank of the field, a cucumber has grown. If you slice it up, pickle it, and offer it to your ancestors, your progeny will live long and you'll receive the blessings of Heaven." The character for pickle (pronounced ju in Chinese and cho in Korean) means kimchee. This ju is the ancestor of kimchee.
The earliest appearance of this character in extant Korean literature occurs in Tonggugisanggukship or the History of the Koryo Dynasty, written by Yi Kyu-bo (1168-1241). Nevertheless, it would be unreasonable to assume that this is actually the oldest documented reference to kimchee in Korea. Some scholars believe the word kimchee is derived from a combination of two Chinese characters meaning 'salted vegetables.' In August 1966, at the Second International Academic Conference on Food Science and Engineering in Warsaw, Poland, it was decided that k-i-m-c-h-e-e should be the official English spelling of this Korean national dish.
A painting by an anonymous artist of the Choson Dynasty. The earliest extant record of cabbage in Korea is found in a Koryo Dynasty book entitled Hyangyakkugumbang, but references to cabbage in books on agriculture were rare until the middle of the Choson Dynasty. Before this, radish was the main vegetable. It was not common to make kimchee out of cabbage until the introduction of Brassica pekinensis from China some time after it was first cultivated in the region of Beijing in the mid 1700s.
Tonggugisanggukchip (History of the Koryo Dynasty), written by Yi Kyu-bo of the Koryo Dynasty, is believed to contain the oldest extant written reference to kimchee in Korea. The book is open at the section entitled 'Kapoyugyong,' a poem about six vegetables grown in home gardens: cucumbers, eggplant, turnips, Welsh onions and gourds.
History
The earliest written references to kimchee date from the second half of the Koryo Dynasty (918-1392). Nevertheless, in view of the fact that such Chinese texts as the Hou Zhou Shu say that cereals, fruits, and vegetables were grown in Paekche and Silla as they were in China, and the production of alcoholic beverages was the same as in China, it seems quite likely that kimchee-like fermented vegetable dishes were already being made and eaten during Korea's Three Kingdom period (4th century-mid-7th century). This was an era when exchanges with China flourished. Methods of pickling vegetables would have been similar to those used in China, and because this period predates the cultivation of vegetables brought in from distant lands, it is probable that the vegetables used in kimchee were local wild species.
Korean food underwent great changes during the Choson Dynasty (1392-1894). Of paramount importance was the introduction of chilies at the end of the 16th century. Some scholars maintain that chilies were brought to Korea directly by Portuguese soldiers who were among the Ming reinforcements that aided Korea during the Japanese invasions. (Whether this is true or not, it is known that chili powder was not widely used in kimchee until the 18th century, nearly 200 years after chili peppers were introduced.) Korean people have always had a taste for food that is hot, both in terms of temperature and spiciness, and the strong flavors of mustard and black pepper have always been popular. When chilies became available, Koreans started to add them to kimchee, which had previously been pickled in a brine flavored with Japanese pepper or fennel. They learned that chilies helped to keep kimchee from spoiling and allowed for the use of less salt.
Old map of Korea.
The origin of Japanese pickled radish is chogangji (ji meaning pickle), but the etymology and meaning of chogang are not clear. In the Kojiki, an 8th-century Japanese history book, there is the story of a man named Chogang who crossed over from Kudara (the Japanese name for Paekche) during the reign of the emperor Ojin and taught the local people how to brew with malt. Perhaps this indicates that chogangji was introduced to Japan from ancient China via Paekche.
A vegetable market of the Choson Dynasty, with piles of long skinny cabbages on display.
Examples of a stone and a wooden mortar. Big mortars were used for pounding barley and other grains, but the smaller ones served to grind up such seasonings as garlic, sesame seeds and ginger. Sometimes large natural rocks were placed in the courtyard near the well and hollowed out to be used as mortars for crushing or grinding chilies. When the hollow became worn very deep after long use, it was put to use as the mortar for a much larger pestle attached to a treadle.
Two Choson Dynasty women, most likely the lady of the house and her daughter-in-law, pound chilies in a mortar. Mortars and pestles were essential implements in farming households, where they were used to grind grains, pound steamed rice into cake dough, pulverize soy beans and so on.
The pestle was thinner in the middle to make it easier to handle, yet the work was very hard physically and the technique for wielding the pestle properly had to be acquired through practice. A hollowed-out section of a log used as a mortar was a common sight at farmsteads around the Korean countryside until not so long ago.
Metal mortars and pestles for grinding seasonings.
Kimchee Through the Years
Throughout Korean history, there are a number of written references to the use of kimchee, the types being produced at certain times and the methods employed. Not only do these shed light on the cultural context in which kimchee is eaten, they help to trace the development of processes and the periods various ingredients were introduced. Below are listed some of the major references:
A kimchee called paktimch'ai is mentioned in Kani Pyogonbang (The Easy Way To Drive Out Epidemics), published in the 20th year of the reign of King Chungjong of Choson (1525). The passage says that adults and children alike should drink the liquid of nabak kimchee made from turnips. This is the first written reference to nabak kimchee (a watery kimchee).
Another book dating from the mid-Choson Dynasty that refers to pickled vegetables is Chubangmun. It describes yakchihi, a medicinal pickle made of eggplant cucumbers and bamboo shoots seasoned with black pepper, garlic, and green onions (the mixture is fried and then immersed in boiled soy sauce); saenggangch'im (ginger pickled in vinegar); t'imgosari (salted bracken); a kind of ch'imch'ae made with cucumbers, eggplant and radish pickled in a hot brine; and ch'ongt'aech'im, made of ch'ongt'ae beans preserved in salt. (Chilies are not mentioned, indicating that they were not yet being used.)
Umsik Timibang, a cookbook written in Hangul in about 1670 by a woman of the Andong Chang clan, contains recipes for a kimchee made of wax gourd pickled in salt, and
