Confession: I can’t stop eating kimchi (while watching others eat it too)

October 20, 2023

I have been consuming a lot of kimchi, the chunky, funky, fermented cabbage that is Korea’s gift to the world. Not only at the dinner table, but after dinner, while watching television.

The new K-Food Show’s documentary series, A Nation of Kimchi on Netflix, is such a mesmerisingly delicious romp that I keep wishing I hadn’t just eaten. I’m bingeing on how Koreans make kimchi, how they eat kimchi and how much kimchi they eat (nearly 2 million tonnes a year).

The “how” is beautiful to watch as everyone mucks in to wash cabbages, salt them, then smother a powerful combination of garlic and hot red peppers between each leaf before burying the cabbages in clay pots, swaddled like babies.

Food on television is a strange beast, and one that fuels all manner of reality programs, cooking competitions and cake-baking marathons. It can be hard to watch all that moaning and groaning with pleasure, smacking of lips and rolling of eyes.

The Koreans (again) have turned this into a phenomenon called mukbang, live-streamed videos in which the hosts bite, chew and swallow food, the sounds of which are magnified out of proportion. It’s the social-media equivalent of clawing your nails against a blackboard (aaaargh!).

By contrast, the three charming presenters of A Nation of Kimchi are a delight to watch as they somehow place enormous chopstick-loads of food into their mouths and make it look positively elegant. How do they do that? (Note to self: practise in front of mirror.)

Being addicted to watching kimchi TV has inevitably led to being addicted to kimchi. I want to eat at the tiny six-seater Chae in Cockatoo on the fringes of Melbourne, where Jung Eun Chae makes 10 different kimchi, including a summery watermelon version. And the new Jan Chi Korean Feast in Melbourne’s Richmond, with its kimchi fried rice, pork belly and kimchi arancini and kimchi-loaded fries.

Kimchi also stars at the new Funda in Sydney’s CBD, bringing freshness and tang to kingfish crudo and wagyu steak, and at the much-loved Hansang in Haymarket and Strathfield in an earthy, comforting beancurd stew called kimchi-jjigae.

In the meantime, I am slipping crunchy kimchi surreptitiously into scrambled eggs, cheese toasties, rice congee and even avocado toast. Sorry about the noise.