dsi1 wrote:
> MtnTraveler wrote:
>>
>> One ingredient that most Westerners seem to avoid when making kimchee
>> is some sort of smelly fermented fish added into the recipe. If you
>> have an Asian market near you, look for Japanese 'shiokara,' and add
>> 1-2 TBS to your recipe. (It's often sold in small bottles and has a
>> very strong smell!) In Korea people store their kimchee in large pots
>> OUTSIDE their homes; on roofs, back stairs, etc., as the smell is too
>> strong to keep them inside. This might be what is missing from your
>> recipe. Many westernized recipes tone this down by using dried shrimp
>> which gives a very different flavor.
>>
>>
>
> My mother-in-law will add chopped raw oysters to her kimchee. I kid you
> not!

It makes perfect sense. Many Asian cuisines require chopped or crushed
raw sea foods as flavoring. The Cambodians, Burmese, Vietnamese, and
Thai rely heavily upon crushed crabs for flavor. Very small, about 3-4cm
across the body, these live crabs get thrown into the mortar and pounded
along with various herbs and spices for addition to many, many dishes.
Thai 'Som Tam' is perhaps the most well known to the West. Frankly, it
used to frighten me when I'd come across a tiny crab claw in a salad!
Not everything gets properly crushed all the time! It took me a while to
get used to seeing it. )

Raw oysters would make a perfect addition to kimchee if you let it
ferment for a few weeks before eating. Certainly easier to get in the
West than tiny crabs or Japanese shiokara.

> My understanding is that the Koreans in the cities will keep their
> kimchee in a separate refrigerator like my mother-in-law used to before
> she moved in with us. They put the refrigerator in the bedroom farthest
> from the kitchen. I used to think "why the heck is there a full size
> refrigerator in the bedroom?" Typically, you can get small refrigerators
> at Korean stores. I believe they call these "kim chee refrigerators."

Walking around a city such as Pussan, with its extremely steep, hilly
topography gives you constant views of the roofs of poeple's homes, and
back stairs. Probably 50% have anywhere from 3-8 different sized kimchee
pots lined up (each for different types of kimchee.) I imagine for the
apartment dwellers, having a spare room for a kimchee refridge would be
the perfect solution. Unless... (and this is just conjecture) I wonder
if there is some sort of space arrangements on roofs of Korean apartment
houses, similar to the basement storage spaces in many American
apartment houses?