Five Tastes of Kimchi.

Posted by Admin on Saturday, April 7, 2012 0

The chinese version of Kimchi is called "Zu" and the Japanese "Osinko". The Chainese and Japanese Kimchi are just cabbages pickled in salt. They, therefore, taste like nothing more than vegetables pickled in salt. Because the vegetables become limp, they lose the fresh crispiness.

Although Korean Kimchi shares the similar ingredients with the Chinese and Japanese version of kimchi, the hot pepper in korean kimchi causes a chemical change that, in turn, creates an entierly different food from the Chinese or japanes version of pickled vegetable.Sprinkling hot pepper powder on osinko will not transform it into Korean kimchi, and removing all the hot pepper powder from Korean kimchi will not turn it into Chinese zu.

Koreans at that time were able to create a revolutionary food product using just hot pepper. What makes it so revolutionary?
First, no other food in the world can recreate the savory fermented taste of kimchi. In the West, a taste is characterized under five categories, i.e. salty, sweet, bitter, sour and spicy. There is no category for the sixth taste, or the savory fermented taste. It is said that the human tongue has taste receptors for five types of taste. Perhaps, the sixth taste receptor is not well developed for the people outside of Korea.

Right before kimchi goes bad, it attains this fermented flavor. The capsaicin from Korean chili pepper is the chemical agent that preserves this flavor which also prevents kimchi from going bad. Vegetables can easily lose their freshness and, for thousands of years, the mankind has been trying to preserve the freshness of vegetables for their diet. Our ancestors achieved this dream with the help of Korean chili pepper. Because of the Korean chili pepper, kimchi can retain its crispy freshness even after several months. Even though they did not know how to perform quantitative or qualitative analysis of different ingredients, they were able to unleash the power of capsaicin hidden in a Korean chili pepper. We can only be astonished at their wisdom.

The reputation of Kimchi has spread to the rest of the world and pleased the palates of many people. The words, “ondol” and “kimchi,” are included in the revised Oxford Dictionary. People can now buy kimchi at the grocery stores in the suburbs of Brussels or in Nairobi. Kimchi has indeed become a part of international cuisine.

The research on kimchi has become international as well. A few years ago, the researchers at Kyoto University in Japan discovered that kimchi has high capacity to break down fat due to its capsaicin. What is really amazing is that eating a Korean chili pepper alone will not achieve the same result. Only when the Korean chili pepper is fermented within kimchi, does it bring out the ability to break down fat. The more people eat meat, the more fat is accumulated in the body. The accumulation of fat is not only a cause of obesity but also a cause of many adult diseases. Recently, gallstone disease has increased among Koreans. Doctors say that when Koreans did not eat much meat, the gallstones of Koreans were usually dark in color. But as the fat intake increased, the color of gallstones has become whiter. The most powerful weapon against fat, which even changes the color of gallstones, can be found in Korean food. In the old days, our ancestors always ate pork with kimchi and added kimchi to soups that had pork. We can only marvel at their wisdom.