Korean foods and diet speak volumes about the country’s history. Korea’s geographical location and nature (being a peninsula), made it an attractive acquisition for trade purposes. Continually overcome throughout history by neighboring empires, primarily Japan and China, the country of Korea has experienced multiple cultural influences.

Interestingly enough, no matter the domination of conquering forces, Korean culture and food-identity have prevailed as absolutely unique. Every cultural practice and food item that has ever been introduced or forced upon the people of Korea by other nations has been subsumed and transformed by them to make it absolutely their own. Language, dress, traditions or food, Koreans have a distinctive cultural identity.

Domination has had another interesting effect upon Korean culture. Not only are its members fierce and driven, but nationalistic pride has contributed to the preservation of its traditional foods in ways that other Asian countries have not held onto in the face of the onslaught of the Western and greater world.

As Korean dishes and Korean foods come into the limelight, they will come up against transforming Western influences. Mass production, pasteurization, the use of vinegar and sugar will affect Korean recipes.

As traditional Korean dishes like dolsot bibimbap are made known, it becomes very important to spread knowledge of authentic Korean recipes and the true processes involved. Already Korean recipes are being changed with “Korean fusion”, ingredient substitutions, and quick and easy versions.

Dolsotbibimbap has been featured on television and is considered a Korean national dish.  Dolsotbibimbap has so far retained its traditional preparation in recipes found on the web.

A few of the fermented basics that give Korean foods their distinct flavors and provide health benefits are: choktal (fermented fish sauce), gochujang (spicy fermented bean paste), kimchee (spicy fermented vegetables), and soy sauce (ganjang.) These are staple Korean flavorings that take time to ferment and depend upon specific processes.

Ganjang, soy sauce, used to be a condiment Koreans made at home. Today, store-bought versions of the brew suffice.

Choktal, fermented fish sauce, is an ingredient in many Korean dishes. It is used like salt but with better benefits. Choktal intensifies the flavors of the ingredients it is mixed with without standing out on its own. Choktal works very well to flavor soups; upon heating the fishy taste disappears but the nutrients remain.

Choktal is rich in iodine, Vitamins A and D and benefits the thyroid gland.

It is made by fermenting fish in salt for 3 months or more and drawing off the resultant liquid. Choktal is made from anchovies in northern regions of Korea and croaker and shrimp in the south.

Choktal is the universal condiment of the ancient world. Roman soldiers used it regularly to ensure that they benefited from its nutrients. The Roman version was called garum.

Ke-tsiap was the Chinese name for pickled fish brine. Dutch traders brought the sauce from the Orient and called it kechap.

The English added mushrooms, walnuts, cucumbers or oysters. Americans added tomatoes.  Unfortunately, the health benefits of the original recipe are lost as ketchup today consists mostly of tomatoes and corn syrup and vinegar.

Gochujang is fermented soybean paste seasoned with Korean chiles, rice powder and honey. This Korean condiment has all of the following flavors: hot, sweet, salty, savory and sour. Gochujang has been shown to have anti-cancerous properties. It benefits the liver, stimulates digestion, lowers blood pressure and has many beneficial enzymes.

Kimchee can be made from any vegetable but traditionally, cabbage and daikon are used. It is important to remember to use organic vegetables as lactobacilli need plenty of nutrients for the fermentation process. Vegetables that are deficient will not activate the process.

Kimchee is becoming a very well-known and sought-after Korean dish.

Dolsotbibimbap features both kimchee and gochujang. Bibimbap was first mentioned in Siujeonseio, an anonymous cookbook from the late 19th century. It was a dish originally meant to make use of leftovers and consists of rice, namul (sautéed or seasoned vegetables), egg, beef and gochujang.  Dolsot bibimbap means bibimbap in a stone bowl. Dolsot bibimbap is a hot version of bibimbap in which the dish is served in a bowl hot enough to crisp the rice in the bottom and partially cook the egg.

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I had never heard of dolsotbibimbap from my Korean mother. I learned of its existence when I ordered the dish in a Korean restaurant in my 20’s. When I dined out with my family in korean restaurants, no one ever ordered dolsot bibimbap. I suspect it was because dolsotbibimbap was considered by my family as a home-made dish, and while we were out we might as well order Korean food that couldn’t be easily had at home. Dolsotbibimbap originated as a way to make use of leftovers and kimchee bap serves the same type of purpose.

Dolsotbibimbap is an artful layering of sesame oil, rice, assorted marinated, cooked and raw vegetables, egg and beef. Kimchee bap includes many of these ingredients but they are stir-fried together, kind of a kimchee fried rice.

Kimchee bap was always referred to as “hot rice” by my mother and she made it with sour kimchee.  When kimchee becomes sour, it hasn’t gone bad but it has become a bit soft and a bit too sour to serve on its own. There are other delicious Korean recipes for sour kimchee that are worth checking out if, like me, you can’t keep up with the gifts of your mother’s constant kimchee production. At times, my mother would rinse this kimchee and others she didn’t. Both versions are delicious and the very different flavors are worth experimenting with.

Many Korean recipes for kimchee bap call for egg and beef. We mostly had a vegetarian version but at times my mother would add leftover beef, pork or tofu. The additions that I most enjoyed were those that included many different vegetable dishes such as bean sprouts, fern, shredded and seasoned fresh sea weed and sautéed spinach. As is common in many Korean dishes, texture is very important and the different vegetable combinations my mother tossed in provided just that.

Online recipes for kimchee bap differ than what I grew up with. In many of these recipes, the rice is sautéed in sesame oil on its own. Shredded beef is marinated in soy sauce, garlic, scallions, sesame seeds, and sesame oil, and then added to the dish. The kimchee is steamed in a rice cooker and the whole shebang is topped with shredded egg.

My mother’s version was easier and I think, tastier: she sautéed the rice in sesame oil. As the rice got crispy she would add soy sauce, garlic, scallion, kimchee, veggies, and most importantly, gochujang, the hot red pepper paste found in many Korean dishes. That’s what made it “hot rice.” And if she did add beef or pork it was shredded bulgoki or pork ribs that had already been marinated and cooked, making use of leftovers in the true tradition of this Korean dish.

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Dolsotbibimbap is a traditional Korean dish consisting of rice, seasoned or sautéed vegetables, meat, egg, kimchee and gochujang (spicy fermented bean paste.) Dolsot bibimbap means “stone pot” and refers to the practice of serving the dish in a bowl so hot it crisps the sesame-oil coated rice in the bottom. Dolsot bibimbap was recently featured on Iron Chef.

A real trend behind this bloom of global interest, besides the appreciation of fine food, is a health-conscious one.

Korean foods lend themselves to healthy eating practices. There are many Korean dishes that are vegetarian. Korean food is unique in flavors and is very different than any other Asian food. Korean recipes are springing up all over the internet.

Fermented foods are found in all traditional cultures. Fermentation was a way to preserve vegetables for eating in the winter months before the days of refrigeration. Fermented foods have enormous beneficial health qualities.

Kimchee, a Korean staple dish, has been shown to increase digestibility and iron uptake from beans and grains. It has anti-carcinogenic and antibiotic properties. It produces many helpful enzymes and is a decongestant. Folklore has it that it rids the body of fats.

Korean fermentation of cabbage and other vegetables has its origins in the Japanese and Chinese practices of pickling vegetables. This practice may have been introduced to Korea by its neighbors but Korean tastes always ran to the strong and flavorful. The introduction of the chile pepper in the 17th century led to the unique combination of ingredients that makes kimchee the most distinctive of Korean foods.

Japan and China are now the largest importers of Korean kimchee. The Japanese import $36 million worth of kimchee a year. The 2003 SARS outbreak in Japan and China had much to do with this. For reasons no one fully understands, Koreans remained largely unaffected by the virus, and accordingly, kimchee was touted as the reason. The typical Korean eats about 8oz. of kimchee per day, which makes up over 12% of their overall daily diet.

In 2005 the BBC reported that Seoul National University had conducted a bird flu study using kimchee. They fed 13 infected chickens kimchee and 11 began to recover. Following this news, the Wall Street Journal reported that Pulmuone Company, South Korea’s leading manufacturer of health foods, saw a 46% increase in kimchee sales.

Although there are yet no definitive studies proving that kimchee can prevent SARS or the bird flu there is no doubt that kimchee is a healthy Korean food.

The appreciation of Korean dishes that include fermented products like kimchee, gochujang (hot bean paste) and fish sauce can help many people to eat in a more healthy way. Dolsotbibimbap, the Korean dish that has gained in popularity here in the states contains both gochujang and kimchee.

Kimchee-making is a craft and mass production always carries with it the threat of thrift. Cutting costs to get the most return will change the original process of making kimchee and its traditional recipes.

Already, “healthy” versions of kimchee are appearing in natural foods stores and different versions of Korean recipes for kimchee are all over the web. Trendy or “healthy” versions of this already healthy product include cutting back salt, making super-fresh versions, using vinegar, and refrigerating kimchee immediately upon its making. Vegetarians object to the use of fermented shrimp paste or fish sauce in kimchee.

One maker of kimchee for natural food stores in Vermont explained that her kids complain about not wanting to have “kimchee breath” and that people are concerned about salt. She used sea salt (the one good change), added vinegar and sold it so fresh that fermentation couldn’t possibly occur.

The unfamiliarity with fermented foods and their process makes people leery of buying anything that has sat out unrefrigerated or that bubbles (a sign that lactic acid is at work.)

Salt is necessary to keep bad bacteria at bay until lactic acid is produced to ferment the kimchee. This lactic acid takes time to do its stuff and room temperature degrees are required to activate it.

The increasing use of vinegar to aid in fermentation detracts from the health benefits of kimchee: vinegar is not good to eat in large quantities and does not produce the same effects.

Also, fermentation is an unpredictable event. Kimchee flavors and Korean recipes for kimchee differ from batch to batch, household to household and region to region. Mass production requires uniformity and that often means the abandonment of original practices. Worries about food illness outbreaks leads to the practice of pasteurization.

Pasteurization entails subjecting foodstuff to high degrees in temperature, effectively killing all bacteria, even the beneficial bacteria that makes kimchee so healthy!

It’s wonderful to see this Korean dish getting the recognition it deserves but the Korean recipes floating around are not necessarily authentic, and the grocery store versions that contain preservatives belie the true process and benefits of fermentation altogether. If it needs preservatives, t hasn’t been fermented.

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When I moved to Vermont I was well-prepared with kimchee-making skills. What I didn’t count on was the unavailability of necessary ingredients. As anyone who has ever been homesick knows, nothing can comfort you more than that taste of home.

My first batch of kimchee was so off. I wasn’t new to the practice of making this Korean dish and soon realized that the red pepper was the culprit. I scoured the state, touring natural foods and gourmet stores. I shopped at Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese groceries. Alas, no Korean market existed. Batch after batch, and I could not duplicate kimchee from home. There was nothing to be done for it until my mother sent me a care package of Korean red pepper.

I picked up an Asian cookbook one day and read about the distinctive flavor of the Korean red chile. This author explained how the unique geography of Korea, its sea air, mountainous regions, soil and water contributed to the one and only kochu, a pepper that tastes like no other.

Kochu is a member of the capsicum pepper family. When ground it is called kochu garu, gochukaru or gokchu garu. Gokchu garu is used to make gochujang a hot pepper paste that is a common ingredient in dolsot bibimbap or dolsotbimbap, the dish most representative of Korea.

The chile was introduced to Korea in the 17th century by the Japanese, who were loathe to give up their monopoly on “japanese mustard” as Portuguese missionaries called it. They claimed that the plant could only grow in its native environments, Central and South America. Korea finally did gain the seeds to grow the chile and is now exports over 1 million kg. per year.

Before the chile, Korean dishes did not include red pepper, a now unimaginable phenomenon. Korean recipes for kimchee consisted of greens, salt and alcohol. Today, there is a claim that Koreans have the highest per capital chile consumption in the world.

Korean food absolutely requires Korean red pepper to taste authentic. Whether you’re making dolsot bibimbap/dolsotbibimbap or other Korean dishes, to really follow a Korean recipe that calls for red pepper, you must get your gokchu garu.

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