MtnTraveler wrote:
> dsi1 wrote:
>> 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.

Somehow, raw oysters fermenting for weeks will chill me to the bones. Am
I being a wimp about all this?

>
>> 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?

It's an interesting questions seeing as how kimchee seems to be the
lifeblood of the Koreans. I can see kimchee as affecting their thinking,
and routines, and architecture, and lifestyles, and national identity.
It's also how blind Koreans recognize other Koreans in foreign
countries. :-)

My wife's stepmother is Korean but her family is of Irish stock from
Montana. When I first met her, she had a rather heady odor about her. It
was a very spicy scent that would cause me to move in closer to be
completely engulfed by it. I remember hovering around the back of her
neck almost in a daze. :-)

Of course, what I was smelling was her mother's kimchee. Haha. She no
longer smells this way unless she eats strong kimchee but I'll smell it
on Korean women and be reminded of those early days with my wife. Them
sure was the days!