The cool cabbage

Let’s be honest. There’s nothing sexy about sauerkraut. Sour fermented cabbage. So then, why do so many cultures have their own versions of it? Korean kimchi, Chinese suan sai, Salvadorean curtido. In a world enamoured by sweet and salty flavours, fermented foods seem to be an anomaly. Yet every country, culture and community has some version of fermented food, from mild Indian yogurt to powerful Japanese miso.

I get on the kimchi bus to find out why. We’re in Namyangju for Slow Food’s AsiO Gusto conference, where ‘fermentation’ is the topic du jour. At the conference, there’s an entire exhibition space dedicated to the fermented food of South Korea’s Buddhist temples. Discussing how it’s important to eat food pickled for a few days, months or even years, the graceful women monks walk me through a display of unfamiliar vegetables, mostly sourced from the mountains. It’s a good time as any to bring up that old Hippocrates chestnut: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food.” In this setting, surrounded by colourful, mysterious and unfamiliar ingredients, it’s easier to believe that the mountains have more answers than your friendly neighbourhood chemist.

More info here:   http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/Food/the-cool-cabbage/article5375682.ece