Kimchiless in Korea

Korea without cabbage for kimchi is like Mexico without corn for tortillas. Or Texas without cows for beef. Or Japan without seaweed for sushi. Or England without milk for tea. Or Italy without tomatoes for pasta sauce. Or...well, you get the point. During the peak months of cabbage growing and buying and kimchi making, South Korea endured a shock when their staple side dish was not on the table. Long background story short, the crazy fall weather left cabbage crops to die, which caused the price of cabbage to soar to an an insane high, which caused a nationwide kimchi crisis.

This left a dent in my daily kimchi diet. I am only here for a year, and a month-long intake of every kimchi variety except cabbage deducted 31 plus days of my yearlong kimchi experience...and, well, needless to say I was saddened. Gutted. 

But just as everything reaches a low, it also picks back up again. Last week, I smashed my face against the window as my bus drove past the Uijeongbu downtown market. My jaw dropped open, I drooled for a good hard moment, my heart beat faster....there, outside the market, was a heaping mountain of CABBAGE! That sour and salty and spicy fermented baechu vegetable soaked up in red pepper and garlic, that crunches in your mouth and leaves your tongue satisfied. Oh, that first piece you settle on your palate provides a simply perfect moment of Korean pleasure. Addiction is the only word that comes to mind when I think of kimchi...And looking at these potentially delicious kimchi cabbages stacked so high and so wide, I knew that I'd be having me some kimchi rather soon. 

Kimchi crisis, what?!