Kimchi and snacks, the opposite poles of Korean food

I wrote quite extensively about French food in Korea a few days ago. So  it's high time I wrote about Korean food too. But it's quite a vast topic, so I decided to start with THE most famous traditional food in Korea : Kimchi.

Kimchi is a spicy side dish made of fermented vegetables (cabbage, radish, or cucumber for instance) and it is served with virtually every Korean meal. There's fish extract in it, oyster sometimes, garlic, and it's fermented, which means it can be pretty strong sometimes, not to say pungent. Hence the distaste some foreigners have for it. But since there are probably hundreds of different kinds of Kimchi, as you'll see if you ever visit a kimchi store in Korea, it's difficult to say if you like it or not. 

I like some kinds of kimchi (the mildest ones by Korean standards) and can't eat others, at least for now. I also like it when it's cooked instead of being eaten as a side dish (fried kimchi and kimchi pancake are yummy!). 

Kimchi Pancake

Anyway, Kimchi is extremely popular (when we're not in Korea, Her sometimes tells me "I need Kimchi"), and the good news is that it's quite healthy (health.com even tells us that it may be one of the reasons why the obesity rate is so low in Korea ).
I talked about kimchi stores, but a lot of Koreans still make Kimchi at home (fewer and fewer people do, though). This year, we visited my in-laws for Gimjang (김장), which is a yearly event during which families prepare Kimchi for the year to come. The quantities can be huge! My mother-in-law usually uses about a hundred cabbages, but this year she "only" prepared sixty... 

Traditionally, kimchi used to be stored in big jars undeground, but today kimchi fridges are used, which can be a good way  to avoid kimchi smell in your main fridge (I wonder why we French people haven't invented the cheese fridge yet...).

In short, kimchi is at the heart of Korean cuisine and culture. When taking a picture, Koreans will say "Kimchi" instead of "cheese". Oh, and it can also be used as a weapon, as this famous scene from a Korean drama shows:

As I said, Kimchi is an acquired taste, so you may want to go for some Korean food with which you'll fall in love at first bite. If so, try Korean snacks. The main reason why they're so good, in my opinion, is that they're not too sweet (or salty), as is often the case in the US or Europe. I checked a few websites on the issue and I noticed that few are mentioning my favorites, so here we go. My all time favorite is Mat Dong San (맛동산) but Jolly Pong (which is not dissimilar to Honey Smacks and which I'm savoring as I'm writing these lines for the sake of accuracy) is a close second.  There are a lot of other varieties like Caramel Corn (카라멜 콘), which is to die for, Corn Chip (it's just puffed wheat, but not crazy salty as I'm sure it would be in France), or Sin Jjang (신짱). The list goes on and on. And the good news is that they keep inventing new ones. We recently discovered Caramel Pretzel (프레첼), which literally blew my tastebuds away!

The problem is once you open the pack you can't stop eating. And I'm not sure it's very healhty (surprisingly, health.com doesn't mention Korean snacks). So snack responsibly and don't forget to give kimchi a chance (or several chances).