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Community and Commensality
Community and Commensality
Making and Eating Kimchi as a Class
Making and Eating Kimchi as a Class
On September 28, the 24 students of the Honors first-year sequence “East Asia in the World” assembled in the Niemeyer Multipurpose Room to collectively make kimchi in an event reminiscent of the traditional community “kimjang” in Korea.
Students were divided into 6 groups based on their desired level of spiciness and funkiness, ranging from three to six participants. Students had various roles, from finding recipes and creating records of the event to researching background information. Each group chose two kimchi recipes: all groups chose to use napa cabbage for one, while five groups also made cucumber kimchi and one group chose to make radish kimchi.
Time to brine
Time to brine
Because the brining process for the cabbage takes a good deal of time, the instructor prepared the cabbage overnight, and the students were able to skip this step.
Beyond that, students cooperated in chopping vegetables, mixing the pickling ingredients, and preparing the rice gruel mixture that feeds the fermentation.
The atmosphere was lively and at times carnivalesque. K-pop dancers projected on the wall. Students “shopping” for unfamiliar ingredients spread out on the table.
“Ewww… the brine shrimp have eyes!”
“Did I cut this small enough?” “Okay, who wants to massage this cabbage?”
Another instructor showed students how to make Vietnamese-style rice rolls and mix up some sauces, and so leftover kimchi ingredients were repurposed for a snack.
Students from a Japanese literature and culture class also stopped by to learn more about kimchi and fermentation.
On November 9, six weeks after the kimjang, we held a tasting in class. The results were mixed, though each group produced at least one delicious product. Some took one whiff of the lactic-acid-fueled fermentation and promptly refused to even try a bite. A few brave souls gave their own product a try and confirmed their dislike. But more than half of the class was eager to enjoy their fermented product. These students went from table to table to try one another’s kimchi and join in conversation. Commensality proved predictably pleasurable, except for three students for whom the air filled with spice and funk was so overwhelming they hung out in the hall until the jars were resealed and the tables wiped down.
As we cleaned up the students were asked if future classes should also have the opportunity to make kimchi, and the response was a loud
and resounding “yes!”
Pressed further, the students thought it a valuable life experience, a skill, a fun activity that brought them together in learning about another country’s food culture.
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