Sometime in November, or maybe early December, depending on the temperatures, Korean families will set aside a weekend for gimjang (김장), the annual kimchi-making. There are so many kinds of kimchi that you can make each season, but gimjang is special. It’s the time of year when families make the beloved and versatile pogi kimchi (포기김치) to be eaten year-round. Gimjang takes place after Chuseok (추석, the fall harvest holiday) and before the winter frost sets in. It’s a group affair—everyone pitches in, and these days more men are helping out, too. Recently, one of Seoyoung’s friends invited us out to her family’s gimjang at the end of November deep in the mountains of North Chungcheong Province.
“My brothers and I go home every year to help our mom with gimjang,” Eugene explains at the train station. Her parents moved from the city out to the countryside a few years ago, following a return-to-the-land trend called guinong (귀농). “It’s a lot of work, though,” she adds, looking concerned. “You know we make about 150 pogi (포기, heads of cabbage).” Just to put that in context, for an extended family of eight, Seoyoung’s mom usually made around 70 pogi.
We arrive at the farm late at night and wake up early the next morning to a landscape muffled in mist. The air is just cold enough to keep you awake. Eugene’s mother had already begun the first steps the night before, cutting and brining the cabbages in 40 kilos of salt.
After packing up the last of the cabbages several hours later, it was time for a nap. A year’s worth of kimchi is hard work.
Hahaha, I wish you had boiled pork meat after finishing Gimjang!
Actually, we did have boiled pork! But we didn’t get any photos… T_T We’ll try again next year!