Kimjang Season ... With a Brief Mention of Onggi
Cabbages and radish lined up for sale in Uijeongbu
Kimjang season is here once again -- that time of year when families gather together to make kimchi for the upcoming winter months. I wrote a post about this topic last year, Kimjang - Winter Cabbage in Korea and Alsace, and recommend it for those interested in reading a bit more about the process. My friend from Yangju complained about her arm hurting during our meeting last weekend -- turns out that she had helped her mom and sisters prepare 80 cabbages a few days earlier. One of my coworkers shared similar sentiments after helping her family with a more manageable 20 cabbages.
I heard from a different friend that her mom makes kimchi throughout the year so they don't have to worry about doing a lot of work all at once. She also brought me a container of home-made kimchi for the second year running. Awesome!
One thing I failed to mention in that earlier post is that the earthenware pots used to store kimchi (as well as other foods) are called 'Onggi' in Korean. In fact, the city of Ulsan on the east coast of Korea holds an annual Onggi Expo that I was hoping to attend this year -- though, sadly, it was canceled due to concerns over H1N1. There is also a locally famous kiln site not far from Ulsan that I tried to visit last year before getting lost in a hamlet by Jiha Beach. Maybe I'm just not meant to see onggi being made?
The introduction of the "kimchi fridge" has made storing kimchi much more convenient for people today than in the past - particularly useful for those families living in the upper portions of high-rise apartment buildings - but it wasn't that long ago that one could see the following scenes:
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