Do You Eat Kimchi Hot Or Cold?

You Can Eat Kimchi Hot or Cold

Kimchi isn't a single kind of food. Instead, it encompasses a wide range of side dishes consisting of fermented vegetables. Even so, there is no issue with eating kimchi either hot or cold.

When Did People Start Making Kimchi?

Fermented vegetables have been made in a wide range of places for a very long time. In Korea, they have been made since at least the Three Kingdoms period, which started up in 57 BC and continued until 668 AD. We know this because a historical record mentions the existence of pickling jars used for said purpose.

Why Did People Start Making Kimchi?

People started fermenting vegetables because it was a good way to preserve them, which was a matter of life-and-death in pre-modern times. After all, subsistence farmers couldn't just buy their food using money that they didn't have as well as markets that weren't available to them. Instead, they had to make sure that their harvests could last long enough to see them through to the next one.

What Are Some of the Different Kinds of Kimchi?

As such, traditional kimchi-making was tied to the cycle of the seasons. For example, fresh herbs and vegetables were popular as spring kimchi. In contrast, cucumbers and radishes were popular for the summer, while napa cabbages were popular for the autumn. Meanwhile, winter would have seen the greatest variety of kimchi because that was the season in which people had the least access to fresh herbs and vegetables.