Spicy Korean Kimchi

Pickled vegetables are a speciality in Chinese and Southeast Asian cuisines. This is understandable, given the abundance of vegetables on the one hand and the absence of refrigeration (until quite recently) on the other. Necessity generated inventiveness and imagination to preserve the foods in a palatable way. Korean meals almost always include a pickled vegetable, ‘kimchi’ as it is called generically, to stimulate the palate and as a contrast to less fiery foods. In the West, we use our p