yum

[kindkit]

I finally went to the Asian market that opened up recently in my town. Spent a bunch of money and I'm now in possession of, among other things, kimchi. Proper Korean-style kimchi. Nicely sour, hot but not blow-your-face-off hot, and above all, not vegan.

The thing is, the store where I work carries 3 or 4 kinds of kimchi. All of them seem to be made primarily for westerners. All of them are vegan. (A lot of Korean kimchis, though I don't think all, contain a little bit of shrimp.) Some of them, I'm fairly sure, use different chiles than the relatively mild Korean ones. I've tried a couple of them and they all tasted wrong to me. So I haven't had kimchi in a while. Earlier today, while I shopping in the Asian market, I hesitated before buying any. "Did I ever really like kimchi or am I just mis-remembering?"

Happy to report that I do actually like kimchi, I even broke out the chopsticks, which is another thing I haven't done for a while. But I would have felt stupid eating kimchi with a fork. And now I'm looking at my empty bowl and wondering if I should have some more.


ETA: The store was missing a few things I hoped it would have--no tianjin preserved vegetable, none of the really good dashi powder that's just bonito and kombu, and weirdly no Pearl River Bridge soy sauce except the mushroom kind. I don't know why I'm having so much trouble finding Chinese/Chinese-style soy sauces. Probably a supply chain issue, I guess. (They're available on Amazon but I'd rather not.) Also they had a vegetable labeled "gai lan" that looked very much like Shanghai baby bok choy to me, and nothing whatsoever like any gai lan I've ever seen before.

Comments

[cyprinella]

My daikon kimchi recipe uses fish sauce instead of shrimp, but yeah, the pepper is also different from what you find on western shelves.

[kindkit]

Yeah, I've seen recipes call for either. And I'm happy to go either way as an eater, but I want that fish component in there. There was a local-ish company doing quite good kimchi, but then the pandemic happened and they went out of business.

[sovay]

And now I'm looking at my empty bowl and wondering if I should have some more.

My personal feeling about kimchi is always more.

(I'm so glad the market was majority a success!)

[kindkit]

It's very nice to have an Asian market here again, and I'm hoping their stocks will expand a little as time passes.

[lilacsigil]

My sister-in-law is Chinese and she has had a lot of problems sourcing brands she likes over the last 6 months (also in 2020-1 but everything was tricky then!)

[kindkit]

The whole international trade/food supply situation is so weird. Or even domestically--here in the US we're having a rough time keeping a lot of US-produced products in stock. I'm sure it mostly comes down to COVID, whether that's people getting sick and absent from the production line, or people who've had to leave their jobs to take care of their kids, or knock-on effects from things like parts shortages. (And, of course, people dying. Not that anyone's really keeping track anymore!)

[virgosplaining]

Mm, there's nothing better than good kimchi!

[kindkit]

It's good stuff.