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 one made by pouring warm water over wild Indian mustard leaves in a jar which was placed on a heated floor to ferment the mixture. This method is called muyom ch'imch'ae, or 'saltless fermentation/ It also includes more exotic recipes that use pickled pheasant flesh and pheasant meat, but the most popular was the nabak kimchee, an everyday kimchee that would have been served in many Korean households.
Umsik Timibang, by Lady Sokkye (1598-1680) of the Andong Chang clan, was the first cookbook written in Hangul. It includes recipes for wild Indian mustard leaf kimchee, pheasant meat kimchee and other kinds of pickled pheasant flesh, and nabak kimchee (a watery kimchee made with flat slices of radish).
Jars used for storing such seasonings as sesame salt, chili powder, and soy sauce.
Chungo Sallim Kyongje (The Expanded Countryside Economy) (c. 1766) contains the first mention of the use of chilies and chili powder in kimchee. Many of the types of kimchee mentioned are similar to those of today, indicating that contemporary types of kimchee began to establish themselves in the mid-18th century.
The recipe for saengch'i ch'imch'ae calls for cucumbers that have been peeled and julienned to be soaked in cold water. Boiled pheasant meat is sliced up like the cucumber, and both ingredients are combined in a warm brine to ferment like nabak kimchee. There are also recipes for kimchees that combine vegetables and fish or meat. Among them are saengch'i tchanjihi 'and saengch'ichihi, which use pickled cucumber fried in oil. with pheasant meat and a seasoning of soy sauce.
In 1655 a man named Sin Sok compiled a book entitled Nongga Chipsong (A Compendium for the Farming Household). It contains an almanac-like section listing dishes eaten during the various seasons of the year. Two of the foods recorded here are ch'imgwajo and ch'imjupcho. The latter is made by mixing eggplant berries and wheat bran and burying the concoction in hot horse manure for about a month. This corresponds to today's kanjangji.
Eleven different kinds of kimchee are described in the book Yorok (Important Records), dating from the late 1600s. None of them list chili peppers as an ingredient. Only kimchees made of radish, cabbage, wax gourd, bracken, ch'ongt'ae beans and other such vegetables are given, along with an explanation of tongch'imi, a watery dish made by salting radishes whole. The muyom ch'imch'ae, or 'saltless kimchee 7 described is made by immersing radish in clear water and leaving it for three to four days until a froth develops, at which point the liquid is drained off, fresh water added, and the radish allowed to ferment further.
Around 1715, Hong Man-Son wrote a book entitled Sallim Kyongje (Counstryside Economy); it had a section on cookery that contained descriptions of various types of kimchee. Most of them do not contain chilies but are made by pickling vegetables in salt or vinegar, in some cases with spices. The book introduces five kinds of kimchee called cha, a variant