This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
I’m kneeling on the tiled floor of my host Annise Lee’s kitchen, sitting next to three of her pink-rubber-gloved Korean girlfriends. Wafts of pungent fish sauce fill the air. It’s a brisk November afternoon in the hills of Coquitlam, Vancouver’s unofficial Korea Town, and we’re gathered around a shallow children’s paddling pool filled with a spaghetti-like mass of radish strips, mustard leaves, ginger, garlic, onion, apple, gochugaru chilli flakes, fermented baby shrimp and, of course, fish sauce. I watch as the ingredients are folded into a paste, while 16 limp and quartered Chinese cabbages wait idly on the pool’s sidelines.
Judging by the occasional tasting and satisfied nods, there’s neither a recipe nor measurements at play here. Instead, Annise’s friend, Eunsun Kim — considered the local community’s ‘queen of kimchi’ — points at her mouth with a paste-covered fingertip. “My tongue remembers the taste,” she says. Like most of the women present, Eunsun originally learned how to make kimchi from her mother. Without looking up, she coats each cabbage layer in paste, using controlled strokes, finally tying the leafy ends into a neat, boat-shaped parcel of vibrant chilli red. We’re ready to eat.
What follows is a hearty feast of fatty pork belly boiled in soya paste served with leftover kimchi ingredients and simply fried jeon pancakes. The kimchi lands with an audible crunch, the tanginess and mild spice urging me on, bite after bite.