Kimchi, why are you so dank?

Let me count the ways. 

1. Fermentationstation. First, let's start with the process of fermentation. Bacteria created from fermentation process begin the digestive process, making the fermented product a goldmine of nourishment for the living bacteria, the flora, of your intestines. It's like the fermenting bacteria are handing all your flora your food on a platter and saying, we did all the work, now you have no excuse for making farts.

2. Ingredients. This Korean dish features cabbage pickled with spices. Daikon radish and carrot are also traditional standbys. For the sake of experimentation with flavoring, you can pretty much throw in any plant with similar physical properties to no ill effect. Radish and carrot are both root vegetables, and their mass is densely concentrated (unlike, for instance, a tomato, which is much more watery). Similar plants could include burdock root, horseradish root, onions, garlic, and other flavorful roots.  Though they grow underground like a root, potatoes, who probably deserve their own appreciative entry, have greater staying power once they are dug up, and so have less need for preservation through fermentation. Cabbages, carrots and radishes are less forgiving when it comes to the passage of time, hence the need and benefit of fermentation.

3 and 4. Personal experience of prejudice and awesomeness. My first introduction to kimchi was in middle school during a state standardized test. There was a written piece about the traditional method for making kimchi that we mostly unworldly eleven-year-olds read and responded to. The section detailed how this Korean dish of national pride and renown was made by fermenting cabbage in clay pots buried under the ground. At this time in my sheltered life, cabbage, 'fermented,' and 'under the earth' combined in a trifecta grosser than the sum of its parts and kimchi was banished to a corner of my brain reserved for the unforgettably gross.

Oddly I don't recall the moment that I actually tried kimchi and released it from its undeserved shackles. I can only vaguely say that it probably came with the realization that barbeque for me was all about the condiments, especially the pickled ones, and especially the Korean pickles with Korean barbeque.

Enter the fermentation craze. Suddenly everyone around me in a house of twelve is fermenting something: tea into kombucha, honey into mead, sourdough starter into many amazing breads, milk into yogurt, largely under the sage guidance of fermentation wizard Sandor Elix Katz of Wild Fermentation fame in print and online.

Thus kimchi entered my life, again. My first attempt at making kimchi was so long fermented with too many hot things (ginger, onion, habanero, weather) that taking a whiff was tear-inducing and so was dubbed the kind of kimchi 'to sabotage your enemies' with. Another try and a slightly different method yielded excellent results. As a matter of preference I do not make it super hot because I like to eat it with everything and taste other flavors besides pain. There are many claims to traditional methods and ingredients, and obviously within those there are variations. This is my pictorial guideline for kimchi exploration. You can start eating it as soon as you make it but it will not be fermented. The fermentation time will vary too with temperature. Taste it to find out how it's doing, and once it's fermenting you can let it get stronger, or cover it and refrigerate.

5. I drew a picture because I like those

Nina Daley appreciates digestion on multiple levels.