Piles of quartered cabbage on the kitchen floor was one of the most exciting sights around the house. It meant that I would be tasting the goodness of fresh, unfermented kimchi that night. It only happened about twice a year. No matter how much homework I had, I would set it aside and offer to help my mother. It was the only way to get at as much of that newly-made kimchi as possible before they all went into jars.
All kinds of things went in there. I just wish I knew exactly how much, but I don't think my mother even knew. She eyeballed everything, and the result was always delicious. She cooked and cooked rice into a porridge and into a thick paste that bubbled. We put that "glue" in a big, round tub. We poured anchovy sauce. Bags of chili powder. Onions, garlic, ginger, green onions, garlic chives, radish. What else? My job would be to dump the vegetables in, and pour the sauces into her disposable-gloved hand so she can evenly spread them into the mix. The tub would be filled with a beautiful red-and-green paste. The two of us would sit on the floor, on opposite sides of the tub, take a cabbage quarter, and start stuffing each layer with the paste. Lift, stuff, spread. Lift, stuff, spread. This was my favorite part. After stuffing each quarter I would pluck off a small, yellow, pickled leaf, wrap some paste in it, garlic chives sticking out, and eat it. Salty, crunchy, spicy, refreshing, best finger food ever. We would take turns feeding each other and marveling at the taste...
The most thrilling and entertaining part of making kimchi was using up all of the paste without running out of it in the middle. We would often freak out when we saw the bottom of the tub of paste when there was still a mountain-pile of cabbage left. Then we would start stuffing so little that we would start to have a shortage of cabbage. So on and so forth, until both would miraculously be used up at the same time.
By the end, when almost a dozen jars were filled with kimchi, I would have acquired a killer garlic-onion breath that would last me about 24 hours, regardless of rigorous brushing and swishing. My stomach would be a little sour from all the raw spices. Despite wearing plastic gloves, my forearms would be stained red-orange, and soap and water did not help. And my mother would gather all the green, salty leaves that had fallen off in the tubs and make a salad kimchi of sorts (겉절이). Toss it in the leftover kimchi paste, sesame oil, sprinkle some sesame seeds, maybe soy sauce, too? I don't know what she did, but it was my favorite kind of kimchi and a delicacy I could only taste a few nights out of the year, because soon it would ferment like all other kimchi in the jars.
I just want to record these things before I forget the details.
