your KIMCHI-ology degree has arrived

The KIMCHI-ology (or how to make your own kimchi) workshop was a smashing success (they always are it would seem)!

We started with a smorgasbord of available veggies. These included red onions, carrots, garlic, ginger, radishes, red cabbage, green cabbage and some peppers and spices. Oh yeah and some apples!

Before the students arrived we laid out all the food and necessary kitchen tools. As it would turn out this wasn’t the wisest idea. We wound up inadvertently using the cuttings boards as plates and then had to wash everything again before the cutting boards could be used for their intended purposes: chopping veggies on! Anyways, I learned my mistakes when leading a FOOD workshop.

After 20+ minutes of talking about the history of kimchi, the differences between kimchi and sauerkraut, and the health benefits of “good bacteria” as told by ex-Fluxer and ceramic artists and food guru Ellen, we had a tasting session:

YUMS!

We talked about what went into each different kimchi, and it was generally regarded that the dill kimchi (either bottom-middle or bottom-left) was the bees knees. Then each student took into account how they wanted to flavor their own kimchi, and we proceeded to cut, dice, chop, mince and then pack our jars:

Here’s a kimchi student hard at work packing their jar:

We made a total (good) mess. We used every single vegetable! We packed 10 jars in total!

48 hours later, and this is what some of the jars are starting to look like:

Of course the real way to judge a kimchi is by its smell, so believe me when I say these stink! The short squatty jar on the right has apples in it, so it has a sweet and spicy smell to it. The one on the far left contains an equal volume of onion and cabbage! It also has a fair amount of garlic and ginger in it. And the middle one was basically all the leftovers packed into another jar (along with some unknown spices to produce a surprise meal).

It’ll take another 7-10 days for these to totally ferment. And then Colonic Justice!