South Korea from Serena Kimchi-Making Festival Celebrates Essential Korean Dish

Kimchi-Making Festival Celebrates Essential Korean Dish
It’s certainly an acquired taste for most Westerners. Some embrace the fermented vegetable dish, and some will pinch their noses as soon as a jar of it is opened.
Mid-October is the season for Korean families to make kimchi. This has been an important event every year for generations and has been an integral event in Koreans' preparation for their long, cold winters.
Lots of children and foreigners had a go making kimchi at the kimchi workshop tent. They learn about kimchi, make the kimchi themselves and get to take it home to eat.
“This festival aims to show that Kimchi is not just a food but a culture,” said the festival’s project manager, Mr. Samjo Joung.
“Kimchi is very important to older Korean people—to them it’s like air. They just love to eat kimchi. These days the younger generation’s taste has shifted to Western style food so they do not like kimchi as much as their parents. In order to promote the tradition of eating kimchi, we”ve designed a program where people can make kimchi for themselves and have fun with the vegetables.”
The history of kimchi can be traced back to ancient times. References to kimchi can be found as early as 2600–3000 years ago.[2] The first text-written evidence of its existence can be found in the first Chinese poetry book, Sigyeong (Hangul: 시경 hanja: 詩經). In this book, kimchi was referred to as “Ji”. The term Ji was used until the pre-modern term “Chimchae” (hanja: 沈菜, lit. soaked vegetables), "Dimchae", and "Timchae" was adopted in the period of the Three Kingdoms of Korea.[3] The word then was modified into "Jimchi", and is currently called "Kimchi".
Early kimchi was made of cabbage and salted water only, and in the 12th century people began to include other spices to create different flavors, such as sweet and sour flavors, and colors such as white and orange. [4]
Chili peppers, now a major ingredient in most forms of kimchi, were unknown in Korea until the early 17th century. Chili peppers originated from the New World and were introduced by the Portuguese to the Far East, as to the rest of the world, through their trading post network.[5][6]. This particular style of kimchi made with chili peppers and baechu, a variety of Chinese cabbage, gained popularity in the 19th century and baechu kimchi continues to be the most common and popular form of kimchi today.[7]