culture appropriation

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On a cluttered shelf in my garage, intermingled with gardening tools, half- empty cans of paint, and cast- aside golf accoutrements, sits an empty one- gallon glass jar that once contained the most delicious kimchi east of California. Th e jar sits there still, several years aft er my wife and I completely fi nished off its contents in what was for us, only sporadic eaters of Korean food, record time— less than a week aft er my in- laws delivered it, declaring that this was the tastiest and most sought- aft er kimchi in all of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Not only the tastiest, but also the most nutritious, my mother- in- law said, a special kimchi fortifi ed with cutting- edge scientifi c technology. Supplies are limited, and thank God she was fortunate enough to procure two jars, one for us, one for them. Evidently, at the crack of dawn on the day of bestowal, my wife’s parents drove two hours from their home near Hart- ford, Connecticut, to Queens on a resolute quest to procure this precious commodity.

But upon arriving at Kum Gang San, the pop u lar Korean restaurant in Flushing that exclusively sold it, they were dismayed to fi nd a long line of others who had arrived before them. Apparently news of the kimchi had spread not only far and wide but also speedily within the Tri- State Korean community. (My in- laws themselves had only just discovered the kimchi a few days earlier, when it seemingly appeared out of the blue at an aft er- service church potluck.) With two jars safely stowed in a large portable cooler, and feeling mightily pleased with their delicious fi nd, my in- laws then drove four more hours along the picturesque New York State Route 17 to the frowsy upstate town of Binghamton, where my wife and I lived,

3 Kimchi

Co py ri gh t @ 20 14 . Un iv er si ty o f Ha wa ii P re ss .

Al l ri gh ts r es er ve d. M ay n ot b e re pr od uc ed i n an y fo rm w it ho ut p er mi ss io n fr om t he p ub li sh er , ex ce pt f ai r us es p er mi tt ed u nd er U .S . or a pp li ca bl e co py ri gh t la w.

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in order to surprise us with our share. Early bird gets the worm, my father- in- law gloated, beaming with pride and chuckling in self- satisfaction.

Th e tastiest, most nutritious, and most sough- aft er kimchi in the en- tire Tri- State area? What a bold claim! Surely she exaggerates, I thought to myself as my mother- in- law slowly removed the lid of the cooler. Carefully nestled amid densely packed ice cubes were the two jars of kimchi. My mother- in- law paused for a moment, her eyes moving from one object to the other, as if yet undecided which bundle to give us. She fi nally made her selection. Th en, in a manner suggestive not of an astute shopper (which she is) but a professional bomb defuser (which she is not), she gingerly un- wrapped the jar from not one but three layers of plastic bags, each neatly double- knotted at the top.

In truth, I was more than a wee bit skeptical of my mother- in- law’s claim that this was the preeminent kimchi of the entire Tri- State region. Aft er all, the kimchi at Gahm Mi Oak Restaurant on Manhattan’s West 32nd Street, the ultimate destination of seolleongtang afi cionados every- where, was pretty diffi cult to top. But everything changed with the fi rst taste. How do I describe it? Crunchy, crisp, and cool as a summer radish just plucked from a backyard garden. Fleshy, almost meaty, and sensual as a morsel of otoro. Faint traces of mineral and brine, as from a freshly shucked Blue Point oyster. Slightly acidic. Hints of citrus, jicama, and toma- tillo. Th e subtle complexity of a top- notch Viognier. Th e eff ervescence of a classically pétillant Vinho Verde.

What it was not, however, was spicy, fi ery, piquant, pungent, or hot. (It was, in fact, cool as a cucumber.) And neither was it crimson, scarlet, or red. (More than anything, it was white, with a whisper of chartreuse.) Nor was it smelly, stinky, or malodorous. (It hardly smelled of anything at all.) In other words, this kimchi failed to live up to the three characteristics— spicy, red, smelly— most nonnative eaters associate with what is generally regarded as the “national dish” of Korea. A quick glance at the list of in- gredients on the colorful label pasted to the jar revealed a clue as to why at least the fi rst two characteristics were absent. Missing conspicuously was any mention of the one item, aside from cabbage, considered synonymous with kimchi and the sole ingredient responsible for the fi ery taste and crimson hue most non- Koreans expect to see in kimchi— the red hot chile pepper. As for the absence of the disreputable odor, the label once again provided a clue: “Great- tasting Kimchi without the smell!” it blazoned in both Korean and En glish.

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Upon closer inspection, I realized there was much more to the label than a mere list of ingredients and claims of product virtues. In fact, if we scrupulously examine the label, we just might locate the key to what can only be described as a twenty- fi rst- century fermentation enigma. A scru- pulous examination of the label and its bilingual content just might lead us to kimchi- Narnia, a world full of wonder, mystery, history, and mythol- ogy, replete with heroes, villains, exotic backdrops, and dramatic turns of plot. To fully comprehend the meaning of the jar (and, by extension, the kimchi itself ), a sedulous, as well as fanciful, scrutiny of its signs, signifi - ers, and cryptograms might be required. In other words, we must treat the label as we might a mysterious Cro- Magnon cave painting in Lascaux of southern France’s Vézère Valley; a diffi cult high modernist poem, say, a canto of Ezra Pound; or the Delphic symbols embedded in Leonardo Da

Label on the jar of the baek (white) kimchi sold at Kum Gang San Restaurant in Queens, New York.

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Vinci’s artwork housed at the Louvre or the Santa Maria delle Grazie. Yes, we must decode Da Kimchi Code. What might we discover about the meaning of kimchi— where it’s been and where it’s bound— by solving the riddle of the jar? Mind you, this kimchi was made nowhere near the dish’s mythical birthplace, the Korean peninsula. Rather, it was bottled and fer- mented in heterogeneous and polyglot Queens, a place best known only a generation ago for being home to Archie and Edith Bunker of the 1970s tele vi sion show All in the Family.

Fermented in Queens

Before my move to Binghamton, Queens was a place I once had the privi- lege to call home. For a short period of time (too short in retrospect), I lived just a few steps from the epicurean salmagundi that is Roo se velt Av- enue, fi rst in Woodside, then Elmhurst. Abutting the two neighborhoods, east of Woodside and north of Elmhurst, is Jackson Heights, arguably the most culturally diverse place in the country, if not the world. Perpetually overlaid by the latticed shadows of the elevated tracks and platforms that ser vice the Number 7 train (aka the Orient Express), Roo se velt Avenue links the three neighborhoods. If we were to walk eastward from Wood- side on Roo se velt for a span of thirty blocks or so, we would, as Martin Manalansan IV said about the borough as a whole, discover “a kaleido- scope of aural, aromatic, and gustatory delights.”1 We would encounter the multisensory contributions of the Philippines, Korea, China, India, Paki- stan, Colombia, Ec ua dor, Mexico, Th ailand, Puerto Rico, Guyana, Peru, and the Dominican Republic (to name just a few, and not necessarily in that order). Head farther east just a mere three or so miles and we cross into the neighborhood of Corona (the mythical home of Archie and Edith Bunker), then Flushing Meadows- Corona Park (home to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the site of the US Open tennis champi- onship), and we eventually arrive in Flushing (the terminus of the Number 7 train and the point of departure of the kimchi that once graced the empty jar whose label we now contemplate).

Th e borough, of course, is signifi cant for myriad reasons other than the fact that it was my former abode. For starters, Queens is where various members of the Lenape— meaning “Men” or “People” in the native Dela- ware language of Munsee— resided for some sixty- fi ve thousand years

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prior to the arrival of the fi rst Eu ro pe ans. Th ese included indigenous groups that called themselves Siwanoys, Matinecocks, Massapequas, Rockaways, and Merricks.2 Th en, just four hundred years ago, Dutch ar- rivals established a colony at the southern tip of Manhattan, naming it New Netherland, which included some farms in Queens on the banks of the East River. British settlers soon followed and, with the Dutch, drove out the Lenape. Th e British then took over the colony in 1664. Two de cades later, the British divided the former Dutch settlement into ten counties, including Queens County, named aft er Catherine of Braganza, wife of King Charles II.3 Since then, millions of settlers, ex- slaves, and immi- grants from countless Eu ro pe an, Latin American, Ca rib be an, Asian, and African countries have poured onto the land once exclusively occupied by the Lenape.

In land area, the borough of Queens is almost as large as the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island combined. Only Brooklyn is more popu- lous. More than 140 diff erent languages are currently spoken there. It is home to nearly half of New York City’s Asian and Pacifi c Islander popula- tion and the largest Chinese American community outside California. It is also home to the largest Argentinian community in the city. My favorite baseball team, the New York Mets, competes there (or at least tries to). It was the site of both the 1939 New York World’s Fair, which included a pa- vilion whose façade was modeled aft er a Wonder Bread wrapper, and the 1964 New York World’s Fair, which introduced Americans to the Belgian waffl e (although some credit the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair with this). Queens was also once home to George and Louise Jeff erson, neighbors of the Bunkers— that is, until they fi nally got a piece of the pie (and their own spin- off show, Th e Jeff ersons) and moved on up to the east side of Manhat- tan, to a deluxe doorman apartment in the sky.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld and disgraced socialite Ruth Madoff (wife of Bernie, the greatest Ponzi schemer in history) attended college in Queens. Legends Harry Houdini, Louis Armstrong, Henny Youngman, Jackie Robinson, Lucky Luciano, Mae West, and some fi ve million other dead souls, legendary or otherwise, are buried in dozens of graveyards scattered throughout the borough. (According to one estimate, the number of dead interred in Queens is more than three times the current population, which prompted the New York Times to describe the borough as the city’s “cem- etery central.”)4 Queens is “the valley of ashes,” where Daisy ran over Myrtle while Jay rode shotgun in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 Jazz Age novel

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Th e Great Gatsby. And Queens is where a pair of black- clad intergalactic border agents exterminated a giant undocumented alien cockroach that was set to destroy Earth in Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1997 fi lm Men in Black.

Can kimchi made in such a place possibly cut the proverbial mustard? Or, to put it in theological terms (given that the majority of Koreans in the United States are churchgoing Christians), can kimchi made here, in Queens, ever taste as heavenly or smell as hellacious as the genuine article made there, in Korea?

The Heat That Conquered the World

In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue— or so we are taught at an early age. (And as far as I know, this remains true.) We are also taught that in doing so, he proved to a superstitious, unenlightened world that the earth was not as fl at as an American pancake but in fact as round as a Danish aebleskiver. (I was quite dismayed to learn later that this was decidedly untrue; it turns out nearly everyone of consequence knew the world was round during Columbus’ time.) What we are seldom told, however, is that just de cades prior the Ottoman Turks had established Constantinople as their empire’s capital, all but cutting off Eu rope’s terrestrial passage to the riches of Asia. Obsessively ambitious and in search of a direct sea route to the Orient and commercial access to its vast trea sures (gold, spice, and everything nice), the Genovese explorer instead came upon an island in the Ca rib be an, one of the Bahamas, but, silly him, mistook it for India, or perhaps even China or Japan. No matter; let us call this place India, he and his followers said, and the semi- naked people upon it Indians. Th us the origin of the greatest nomenclatural blunder in history. No, not “Indian” for every indigenous person of the Americas. For the purposes of this discussion, that ranks second. And neither his corruption of the Carib Indians’ name to canibale, which came to signify anthropophagy in the En glish and Spanish lexicons.5 (Th at is to say, due to Columbus, the word for “Caribs became Canibs and eventually cannibals.”)6 Let us rank this misnaming third.

Columbus’ greatest nomenclatural gaff e, at least from a gastronomic perspective, was mistaking the New World’s chile for the Old World’s black pepper. Th e latter was Eu rope’s black gold, the hottest commodity of

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the time; it is the spice we call black pepper, as opposed to red pepper, its New World alter ego, its culinary doppelgänger. Th e red pepper is what the Arawaks of yore called ají (also rendered axí, ajé, or agí), a term still used in some parts of the Ca rib be an and South America.7 Th e black pepper, meanwhile, is as apt a symbol as any of the fi nancial motive behind Co- lumbus, in his attempt to map an alternate route to the Moluccas (aka Spice Islands), sailing the ocean blue in the fi rst place.8 Due to his mix up, the two hitherto unrelated objects were to be evermore lexically blurred in most Eu ro pe an languages. Th e Portuguese “pimento,” Dutch “Spaanse peper,” French “piment,” Danish “paprika,” and En glish “chili pepper” all are terms for the chile rooted in the masculine Spanish “pimiento,” named aft er the feminine pimienta, the black pepper.

Th is nomenclatural confl ation has prompted Jean Andrews, the world- renowned expert on the chile and author of Peppers: Th e Domesticated Capsicums, to wish “we had another name for what we call peppers, in order to distinguish them from the pepper of the spice merchants, which is obtained from the dried fruit of the Piper nigrum Linné, 1753, a climb- ing shrub of the family Piperaceae, native to India, whereas our peppers are of the genus Capsicum Tournefort, 1719, a member of the family Sola- naceae.”9 Other major New World produce that belongs to the Solanaceae family includes tomatoes, potatoes, and tobacco.10 Sophie Coe, author of a book on pre- Columbian food titled America’s First Cuisines, remarks that the genus Capsicum seems “to have a magnetic attraction for confusing colloquial names.”11 Th ere are two opinions as to the origin of Capsicum, both equally plausible. One camp believes it is from the Latin capsa or cap- sula, meaning “box” or “chest,” while another insists it is from the Greek kaptein or kapto, meaning “to bite.”12

To avoid confusion, I prefer to refer to the genus Capsicum simply and exclusively as “chile,” reserving “pepper” for the small, dried fruit of Piper nigrum (i.e., the stuff that gets ground in a pepper mill) or to be used in conjunction with “bell” (as in green bell pepper or red bell pepper) in re- ferring to the large, mild chiles the British call sweet peppers and Austra- lians and New Zealanders call capsicum. In this I follow the lead of Mark Miller, formerly of the Coyote Café in Sante Fe, New Mexico, and others who insist on chile as the “general convention for proper usage” to refer to the plant or pod of the genus Capsicum, with chili, the conventional Amer- ican spelling, reserved for the dish commonly made with chiles and meat,

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such as chili con carne.13 And for reasons akin to why we Americans prefer “color” over “colour” and “civilize” over “civilise,” I would rather we on this side of the pond leave “chilli” to those across it.

Exactly how many diff erent chile varieties there are in the world is anyone’s guess. Th us far about twenty- fi ve wild and a handful of domesti- cated species have been identifi ed. A reliable estimation is between two thousand and three thousand diff erent cultivars, but even this vague fi g- ure is unhelpful given the chile’s propensity to cross- pollinate without human involvement. Th e chile’s tendency to hybridize readily has resulted in the emergence of innumerable local forms in nearly every conceivable climate or region the plant has laid down roots. Jean Andrews believes no other spice in history has proliferated so widely or so quickly. Regardless of the diversity, however, all chiles found in markets and kitchens around the world today are botanically similar to the varieties Columbus fi rst en- countered more than half a millennium ago.14

Th ese include several species of undomesticated Capsicums, com- monly called “bird peppers,” along with the fi ve major categories of do- mesticated varieties, namely Capsicum frutescens (which includes the tabasco chile, which gave its name to the famous Tabasco- brand pepper sauce), Capsicum pubescens (known in Mexico as apple or pear chile for its bulbous shape), Capsicum baccatum (called ají in parts of South America and the Ca rib be an), Capsicum chinense (which includes many of the hot- test chiles in the world, such as the habañero), and Capsicum annuum (the most common and diverse of all, which includes Th ai hot, cherry pepper, banana pepper, Hungarian paprika, Fresno, chile de árbol, Korean hot, cayenne, serrano, jalapeño, poblano, pasilla, sweet bell, and numerous ornamental varieties).15

Columbus’ 1492 voyage initiated a back- and- forth fl ow of biological matter between the Eastern and Western Hemi spheres that radically and irrevocably altered both worlds. Previously, the two hemi spheres had been completely isolated from each other in all matters fl ora and fauna, and in human activities. Th is mutual isolation came to a sudden halt in a pro cess Alfred Crosby Jr. has termed the “Columbian Exchange.” And it was truly an exchange, as the two halves of the world indiscriminately traded bio- logical matter that would become instrumental in both the population explosion of the denizens of the Old World and the population annihila- tion of many of the indigenous peoples of the New World.

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Th e Old World settlers, who would eventually supplant much of the indigenous New World population, introduced to the Americas such im- portant crops as wheat, oat, rice, sugarcane, banana, soy, garlic, onion, cucumber, carrot, and eggplant. In return, the New World contributed such essential viands as corn (maize), potato, tomato, squash, peanut, pineapple, cassava (manioc), and avocado. As for animals, the conquerors and settlers brought with them horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, honey- bees, pigeons, and rats, while the societies they left behind received turkeys, guinea pigs, llamas, and alpacas. Other exchanges included the New World’s tobacco and cacao for the Old World’s opium, coff ee, tea, and milk.

Yet there was another biological exchange that proved to be as conse- quential as any other, with one side incontrovertibly losing out in the most cataclysmic fashion imaginable. For millennia prior to Columbus’ arrival, New World denizens went about their business forming, as Crosby puts it, “unique cultures and working out tolerances for a limited, native Amer- ican selection of pathological microlife.” But aft er 1492, “the American Indian met for the fi rst time his most hideous enemy: not the white man nor his black servant, but the invisible killers which those men brought in their bloods and breaths.”16 Th ese invisible killers led to diseases such as typhoid, bubonic plague, yellow fever, leprosy, measles, small pox, chicken pox, malaria, tuberculosis, infl uenza, and the common cold. Th e New World, however, was not without its own microbial contribution, even if it was limited to a single type. As if some sort of comic relief would be neces- sary in the face of such great tragedy, some believe that the American In- dian gave syphilis— aka the French Disease and Cupid’s Disease— to the Old World.

In addition to possibly introducing to the Old World something that tickled its loins (syphilis), the New World also gave it something that titil- lated its tongue. Th ere is a diff erence of scientifi c opinion as to the precise geographic origin of the chile. One group argues for what is now central Bolivia while another argues for southern Brazil. According to Andrews, the plant most likely originated “in the area south of the wet forests of Amazonia and the semiarid cerrado of Brazil.” Th eir unique botanical features allowed these earliest wild chiles to be easily transported, and both birds and humans began spreading them widely “beginning any time aft er the formation of the Panama land bridge between North and South

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America in the Pleistocene epoch,” which lasted from some 1.6 million to 10,000 years ago.17

Archaeological remains point to chiles being the fi rst spice ever to have been used by humans. Excavations in Mexico have revealed evidence of its consumption that dates back to 7200– 5200 BC. It is believed chiles were fi rst domesticated sometime between fi ve thousand and ten thousand years ago.18 By the time Columbus reached the New World, all of the major domesticated forms of the chile that now exist had not only already been formed, but had spread from South America to Central America and the Ca rib be an.19 Th e traditional pre- Columbian use of chile went beyond the Nahuatl molli (or Mexican mole) and other culinary wonders, however. Although it proved futile, the Incas set ablaze mounds of dried chiles to temporarily blind the invading Spaniards, and the Mayas reportedly pun- ished promiscuous women by rubbing fresh chiles on their genitals.20

Today, it is impossible to imagine innumerable cuisines of the world beyond the Americas without thinking fi rst and foremost about chiles. Without them there would be no such thing as Indian vindaloo, Hungar- ian goulash, Spanish chorizo, Mozambican piri- piri, Ethiopian berbere, Moroccan harissa, Chinese kung pao, Th ai tom yum, American Tabasco sauce, or Korean yukgaejang. And chiles continue to be used for martial and disciplinary purposes; the chemical that makes chiles pungent is the primary ingredient in pepper spray, for example.21

David DeWitt, author of over a dozen books on the chile, speculates that Koreans are the highest per capital consumer of chiles in the world.22 Today there are perhaps more than a hundred varieties of chiles grown in South Korea alone, with diff erent types named for the region in which they are grown, such as Yeongyang, Cheonan, Eumseong, Cheongsong, Jecheon, and Boeun.23 South Korea is among the largest chile producers in the world. DeWitt ranks it fi ft h largest; India, Mexico, China, Th ailand, Ethiopia, Malaysia, and the United States are other major producers. Chiles account for 35 percent of South Korea’s vegetable agriculture, surpassing the other two major crops, cabbage and garlic, which, not so coinciden- tally, are also common ingredients in kimchi.24

Th is comes as a surprise to many, not least to Koreans: the practice of adding chiles, specifi cally dried red chile powder or fl akes, to many types of kimchi is a relatively recent practice— that is, if you accept the premise that Korea is some fi ve thousand years old, as national folklore purports. Michael Pettid, author of Korean Cuisine: An Illustrated History, notes that

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a fi ft eenth- century writer referred to kimchi as a “golden- yellow vegeta- ble,” indicating that the kimchi of that era was a far cry from today’s emblematic version dominated by the color red.25 According to Manjo Kim, the earliest record of chile use in kimchi is said to be 1715, when a Confucian scholar referred to the use of chiles in kimchi while discussing cultivated vegetables. Koreans have long enjoyed strong and bold fl avors in food. Before chiles were introduced, mustard, black pepper, garlic, ginger, tangerine peels, and other pungent and aromatic ingredients enlivened the taste of kimchi.26

It is generally accepted that chiles entered Korea via Japan sometime aft er the Hideyoshi invasions at the end of the sixteenth century. Th e earli- est recorded mention of chiles is in a 1613 document that referred to it as a “great poison” brought to Korea from Japan, but is now widespread in Korea. Th e document added that chile- laden foods were a common drinking- house nosh.27 Some contemporary scholars, however, especially those who cannot stomach the idea that Korea owes something so vital as this to Japan, argue that chiles arrived directly via Portuguese soldiers in- cluded among the Ming reinforcements that fought alongside Koreans during the Japa nese invasions.28

As to when chiles fi rst appeared in Japan, this, too, is open to ques- tion. Most credit the Portuguese, who fi rst reached Japan in 1549. Lizzie Collingham, author of Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, notes that the Portuguese were the fi rst to dominate the global chile trade and are responsible for introducing chiles to India soon aft er Vasco da Gama fi rst landed near the port city of Calicut on the Malabar Coast in 1498.29 Others, meanwhile, argue that chiles arrived in Japan in de pen dent of the Portuguese, through Japa nese trading vessels such as the Red Seal ships that sailed to Southeast Asia, where the Portuguese had established com- mercial centers, and as far as to New Spain (present- day Mexico), the an- cestral home of the chile, until access there was denied to Japa nese ships in 1611.30

To most nonnative eaters, Korean food is synonymous with what the Japa nese call togarashi, Senegalese foronto, Bhutanese ema, Th ai prik, Gu- jarati lilun marchu, and Koreans gochu. More than any other criterion, the Scoville Heat Unit (SHU), a scale that gauges the hotness of chiles, domi- nates pop u lar discussion of what constitutes “real” Korean fare. Th e SHU mea sures the level of capsaicin, the heat- producing chemical compound found in all chiles. Th e highest concentration of capsaicin is found not in

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the seeds, as many mistakenly believe, but along the vein- like placenta, or capsaicin glands, that run vertically within the inside wall of the chile pod. Capsaicin acts as a defense mechanism against animal predators that might otherwise choose to include chiles as part of their diet. It is believed that while mammals, including humans, are susceptible to the painful bite of the protective chemical, birds are immune. Hence many small varieties of chiles are called “bird peppers,” which are believed to be consumed and then subsequently spread elsewhere via bird droppings. Under the Scoville scale, fi rst devised in 1912, the mildest varieties, such as bell peppers, score zero SHU, whereas the hottest on record, the Bhut Jolokia from the Assam region of India, scores over a million.31

Th e hotter the dish, the more authentic the Korean taste, or so I oft en hear. Chile- laden Korean fare like ojingeo bokkeum, bibim naengmyeon, and sundubu jjigae is said to be “watered down,” “westernized,” or, worse yet, “Americanized” if it fails the native tongue taste— that is, if its SHU is lower than the idealized version consumed by a so- called “real” Korean, a fi gure shrouded in both anthropological and nationalistic intrigue. For better or for worse, the chile is the ingredient that comes fi rst to mind

Assortment of red chile fl akes and powder at a market in Seoul, South Korea. Photo by the author.

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whenever Korean gastronomy is discussed, even if plain evidence— such as menus and cookbooks that contain a substantive number of dishes without chiles— indicates otherwise. Th e Lonely Planet guidebook, for ex- ample, describes the chile as Korea’s “big spice,” and off ers the following rule for dining out: red = spicy.32

Th e tendency to distill Korean food down to its spicy essence is not only a nonnative trait, however. Increasingly, Koreans themselves are con- ceding to the power of the capsaicin. To Mi- ok Kim, the red chile powder in par tic u lar “occupies a permanent place on the dinner table of Korean families,” making it diffi cult to imagine Korean food without it. Th is, she maintains, is especially true for kimchi.33 Th e color red, moreover, occu- pies a special place in traditional Korean culture, including in food. Prior to the arrival of chiles, ingredients such as cockscomb, saffl ower, and vio- let leaf mustard were used to impart the desired redness to some kimchi.34 To Kyung- Koo Han, it is the “red pepper that makes kimchi into the food of the Koreans.”35 Th is sentiment is echoed by Michael Pettid, who de- scribes chiles as “an essential component in Korean cuisine” and most notably in kimchi, despite “a relatively brief history in Korea.” He adds that some four hundred years aft er its introduction to Korea, “it is very diffi cult to imagine Korean foods without them.”36

Th us, to return to our kimchi jar, a casual observer might fi nd it even more curious to fi nd no chile whatsoever in Kum Gang San’s unspicy, odorless, white kimchi.

The Heterogeneous Kimchi

Of course, to those in the know, there is nothing remarkable about the whiteness of kimchi, as kimchi comes in all colors, shapes, sizes, and de- grees of heat. (Th at being said, there is nothing remarkable about the white- ness of Korean food in general.) It is unclear as to exactly how many diff erent types of kimchi exist. Reports vary widely: Cherl- Ho Lee indicates there are more than fi ft y types, while the Korea Food Research Institute, a South Korean government- sponsored research center charged with increasing the profi ts of the South Korean food industry, reports that 187 kinds were identifi ed in a survey.37 Manjo Kim declares that there have been more than three hundred diff erent preparations.38 But as Chun Ja Lee and others have pointed out, the exact number is ultimately meaningless given that

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Koreans “can make kimchi out of practically any edible material,” culti- vated or wild, fl ora or fauna.39

Kimchi’s boundless diversity indicates multiple factors at work, includ- ing regional, seasonal, agricultural, communal, and personal peculiarities. While this makes any eff ort to categorize kimchi a challenge, resulting in a number of alternate but overlapping or ga niz ing principles, the foremost factor is seasonal. Th e Korea Food Research Institute classifi es kimchi into two main types, “winter” and “seasonal,” with the former typifi ed by whole- cabbage and whole- radish kimchi and the latter by young cabbage and cucumber kimchi.40 Manjo Kim, perhaps the most prolifi c writer on kimchi in En glish, organizes kimchi along fi ve seasonal types— winter, spring, summer, autumn, and year- round.41

Cross- referencing primary ingredients (e.g., cabbage, radish, leafy veg- etables) with curing agents (e.g., brine, spices, soy sauce, soy paste, chile paste, fi sh sauce, fi sh fi llets, rice wine, malted rice, fruit brew) is another way to make sense of kimchi’s heterogeneity. Th is sorting method has reportedly resulted in the identifi cation of ten major types of kimchi.42 Owing to the Korean peninsula’s numerous climatic zones, ranging from humid continental to humid subtropical, another important or ga niz ing principle is regional. Diff erent regions of the peninsula boast distinct envi- ronmental, topographical, historical, and social idiosyncrasies. According to Chun Ja Lee, Hye Won Park, and Kwi Young Kim, authors of Th e Book of Kimchi, the kimchi of the northeasternmost Hamgyong province, which is not only the coldest but most remote part of the peninsula, is said to be “beautiful and bold,” with “plenty of juice.” Hamgyong kimchi is less salty and spicy, since the colder weather near the Chinese and Rus sian borders allows for a more moderate use of preservation agents such as salt and chiles. Th e southernmost Cheju Island province, by contrast, is noted for its lavish use of marine life, best characterized by its famous abalone kimchi and mixed- seafood kimchi. Th e mid- peninsular Gyeonggi prov- ince, meanwhile, due to its po liti cal centrality throughout Korean history, is known for “glamorous and extravagant” kimchi, typifi ed by ssam (wrapped) kimchi and chang (soy sauce) kimchi.43

Other notable kimchi categories include royal palace kimchi, such as pomegranate kimchi (made not from the multiseeded, red- fl eshed fruit but rather from stuff ed radish blocks cut in a crosshatch pattern) and cit- ron or yuja kimchi. Memorial ser vice kimchi is usually a white radish va- riety that corresponds to the traditional Korean funereal color. Buddhist

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temple kimchi is characterized by the absence of animal products, such as seafood, and “hot” vegetables such as scallion and garlic, in accordance with Buddhist principles, and the inclusion of assorted mountainous herbs and other vegetation, such as dropwort. Filial piety kimchi is designed specially with the elderly— that is, weak teeth and sensitive digestion— in mind. And pregnancy kimchi pays meticulous attention to the precise shape and form of ingredients, such as radishes cut into exact mea sure- ments, as the formal beauty and precise proportion of the food consumed by the expectant mother are said to correlate to the child’s “straight and sound body and mind.” 44

Today’s most commonly consumed kimchi is unquestionably made with baechu cabbage (also known as napa cabbage, Chinese cabbage, or Korean cabbage). However, nearly every vegetable, cultivated or wild, found wherever Koreans reside, can be and has been used as the principal base for kimchi. Radishes, chives, Indian mustard leaves, soybean sprouts, leeks, onions, turnips, ginseng, spinach, cucumbers, watercress, burdock root, mulberry leaves, green tomatoes, Swiss chard, citron, sweet potato stems, bamboo shoots, perilla leaves, and eggplant hint at just the tip of the kim- chi iceberg. Typically, some sort of fresh but more oft en preserved or fer- mented seafood called chotkal— oyster, shrimp, squid, or fi sh— is mixed in during kimchi preparation, refl ecting Korea’s peninsular geography and historical dependence on the ocean for foodstuff s.45

But if kimchi can be made with just about anything, and if the chile is but an optional ingredient, what makes kimchi kimchi? Not surprisingly, there are considerable diff erences of opinion as to the precise defi nition of kimchi, which, again not surprisingly, rests on its reputed origin. If kimchi is broadly defi ned as a vegetable that has been salted, brined, or pickled, then its origin goes back at least three thousand years to Neolithic China, reaching Korea through culinary diff usion during the Unifi ed Silla period about fi ft een hundred years ago.46 In what is considered the earliest collec- tion of Chinese poetry, Th e Book of Songs (compiled around 600 BC and containing lyrics composed between 1700 BC and 700 BC), a stanza cele- brates the sliced and pickled cucumber, which, if off ered to your ancestors, will bring long life and the blessing of Heaven for your progeny. Some be- lieve the Chinese word for this pickle, pronounced jeo in Korean, is the progenitor of kimchi.47 As for the etymology of kimchi, the word is said to have derived from Chinese characters for brined or salted vegetables, which nineteenth- century Koreans called chimchae, before evolving into

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the modern- day kimchi.48 (At the 1966 International Academic Confer- ence of Food Science and Engineering in Warsaw, Poland, participants reached an agreement to offi cially romanize the word as “k-i- m-c- h-i.”)49

Th us it appears that what makes kimchi kimchi is neither cabbage nor chiles, but salt or perhaps acid, such as vinegar. Th e preservation of food by pickling or brining is among the oldest and simplest culinary practices known to humans. As Harold McGee, author of the essential On Food and Cooking: Th e Science and Lore of the Kitchen, points out, the technique is adaptable to all climates, requires no cooking, and thus expends no fuel. All that is required is a vessel and some salt, saltwater, or strong acid— and perhaps a hole in the ground.50 Examples of such foods span the globe: sauerkraut, olives, preserved lemon, ham, corned beef, gravlax, and caviar are but a negligible sampling.

And while cabbage is mentioned in thousand- year- old Goryeo dy- nasty documents, the tiny and sparse core of that era’s cabbage hardly re- sembles the current version. Today’s baechu cabbage, whose large, densely

Assortment of kimchi at Super H Mart, a Korean market in Ridgefi eld, New Jersey. Photo by the author.

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packed heads resulted from several generations of selective breeding by the Chinese and not grown in Korea until the mid- nineteenth century,51 is now, for better or worse, the standard foundation of the twenty- fi rst- century kimchi. In fact, when kimchi is referred to without any qualifi ers, it is baechu kimchi made with red chiles that is most likely meant. Th e term “kimchi” is simultaneously narrow and wide ranging: specifi cally, it refers to chile- laden baechu kimchi; generically, it refers to the countless other kimchi varieties that currently exist, have once existed, and might one day exist.52

The Super Functional Food

While chiles do not appear as an ingredient on the label of our jar, the following items do: cabbage, radishes, garlic, ginger, salt, scallions, and, somewhat disturbingly, lactic acid bacteria. But rather than downplay this fi nal, germy detail, the label counterintuitively highlights it. It not only divulges the type of bacteria used but the person responsible for it— a cer- tain Dr. Kang (sans fi rst name). In fact, it turns out that our white kimchi from Queens is named for the microbe: “Patent IH- 22 Lactic Acid Bacteria Kimchi.” Evidently, the kimchi makers want the world to know that their custom- tailored microbe— unlike, say, the dreaded E. coli O157:H7, the bane of Fast Food America’s gastrointestinal tract— does not pose a health hazard. Rather, this newfangled, high- tech strain injected into Kum Gang San’s kimchi is not only safe to eat, but is, more importantly, good for you.

Kimchi in recent years has become for Koreans what red wine has been for the French since the early 1990s— or since November 17, 1991, to be exact. On that Sunday eve ning, CBS’ newsmagazine program 60 Min- utes fi rst introduced the so- called French paradox to the mainstream American public. Despite a diet loaded with fat and cholesterol, there is something that seems to be protecting the French from heart disease, mused the segment. A meal consisting of pig’s head pâté, black pudding (“which is very fat”), potatoes in oil, and double- fat sliced tripe was cited as “routine stuff ” for the French. If Americans were subjected to this sort of meal, claimed a researcher, “we’d all be suff ering from coronaries at an early age.” So why is the French rate of coronary heart disease about half that of the United States? According to 60 Minutes, the French drink more red wine.

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Although this was the gist of the message that would be widely pro- mulgated, in reality the matter was much more complicated and nuanced. First, the 60 Minutes report did not single out red wine. Rather, it proposed the French love of cheese— as opposed to the American love of milk— as an equally important explanation for the paradox. Second, it was not simply wine but alcohol in general that was cited as an “all but confi rmed” pre- ventive for heart disease.53 Regardless, over the next two de cades the Amer- ican media would repeatedly identify red wine as the primary— if not the sole— reason for the French paradox.54

And neither did 60 Minutes imply that the wine ought to be French produced. Nonetheless, the French government immediately capitalized on the report by boasting about the miraculous power of their national viticulture. A governmental agency that promotes French food and wine overseas (Food and Wines from France) even purchased full- page adver- tisements in several American newspapers that fêted French wine while embellishing the facts. Th e copy of one such advertisement read, “Ac- cording to a recent news report on CBS’s ‘60 Minutes’ entitled ‘Th e French Paradox,’ the intake of fat in the French diet seems to be counter- acted by their drinking of French red wine. Yes, French red wine. Th e intake of wine per capita in France is higher than anywhere else in the world. In comparison, the United States per capita intake is among the lowest.”55

What promptly followed was a boon for the wine business. In 1992, the year following the 60 Minutes report, sales of red wine in the United States increased 42 percent and white wine 13 percent. And no doubt to the cha- grin of Miles Raymond (the Paul Giamatti character in the 2004 fi lm Side- ways), the surge in sales of merlot was the most dramatic; it rose 92 percent from the previous year.56 (Amusingly, sales of foie gras, which a French research team suggested was good for the heart, also spiked during this time.)57 In 1996 an incredulous Harvey Levenstein made light of the French paradox, calling it a fortuitous break for the wine industry. “Don’t expect that luck to last,” he added.58 Warren Belasco pressed this view with a reminder that 5 percent of the population drank 75 percent of the wine consumed in the United States. He predicted that the love of wine would never become widespread among Americans. Rather, wine drinking would disappear even in the Mediterranean world, as there was a greater likelihood of the Mediterranean “coming our way” than the United States adapting to the other’s way of eating and imbibing.59

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Levenstein and Belasco were not the only food pundits to publicly air their doubts. Some four years earlier, amid largely positive buzz about the French paradox, Marion Nestle prescribed a dose of restraint and perspec- tive. She pointed out that the French diet was traditionally low in fat and had only recently begun to rival the American diet in this regard. “Th e French diet is newly high in fat,” she asserted, “and heart disease rates just haven’t had time to catch up.” Jean Mayer took the criticism much further: “Th e French paradox is a hoax,” she averred. “It’s quite possible that 20 to 30 years from now the French may have as much heart disease as we (Americans) do.” 60

Just as news of the French paradox vivifi ed the wine industry in the United States during the 1990s, reports of kimchi’s health value proved similarly serendipitous for the kimchi industry a de cade or so later. And just as the French government had done, the Korean government played a pivotal role in promoting the product. Somewhat predictably, it did so with the overt aim of bolstering the commercial potential for industrially produced kimchi in an ever- expanding overseas market.

Even as early as the 1980s, especially as the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games drew near, murmurs of a strange food from Korea called kimchi surfaced periodically here and there in the United States, and particularly on the two coasts, where signifi cant Korean American populations resided. Back then, only a smattering of Americans had heard of, let alone tasted, kim- chi, which led the New York Times to issue a primer on the rudiments of the dish on July 29, 1987. “Pronounced: kim- chee,” began the article. “Pro- duced: by women from Seoul to Pusan, from grandmothers to would- be brides.” “Consumed: three times a day, year- round, by the majority of South Korea’s 41 million people.” 61 While the article touched on the ori- gin, history, cultural importance, symbolic value, and emotional signifi - cance of kimchi, there was no mention of its nutritional value. A few months later, though, the Los Angeles Times would publish a major front- page profi le of “the uniquely Korean dish” and report on the quaint but outlandish Korean belief in kimchi’s “mysterious energizing quality” to “improve the per for mance of athletes.” 62

Over a span of twenty years, kimchi’s reputation as a healthful food would undergo a dramatic transformation— from being regarded as an offb eat superstition of an eccentric people in the mid- 1980s to a much- ballyhooed culinary truism for the cosmopolitan foodie crowd in the mid- 2000s. In the March 2006 issue of Health magazine, for example, Korean

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kimchi is identifi ed as among the fi ve most healthful foods in the world, sharing the accolade with Spanish olive oil, Japa nese soy, Greek yogurt, and Indian lentils. Kimchi “is loaded with vitamins A, B, and C” and is “part of a high- fi ber, low- fat diet that has kept obesity at bay in Korea,” reports the magazine.63 In November 2009 the glossy food magazine Saveur devoted ten full- color pages to kimchi, calling it Korea’s “national obsession.” “In addition to being rich in vitamins B and C,” writes Mei Chin, the author of the article, “kimchi has, according to more than one study I’ve read, even shown promise in preventing cancer. It is, apparently, a superfood.” 64

Kimchi’s current reputation as a superfood is no chimera, however. It did not materialize out of thin air, nor did it magically emerge from the offi ces of South Korean government bureaucrats. Th e fi eld of nutraceutical sciences, and Korean researchers in par tic u lar, had been paying scrupu- lous attention to the health- giving and medicinal potential of kimchi for quite some time. Kimchi, as such, is routinely defi ned as a functional food, a descriptor that Japa nese researchers originated during the 1980s.65

Although “functional food” is freely bandied about among nutritional experts and commercial interests, there is no legal or uniform defi nition of it— at least not in the United States or Eu rope.66 According to Glenn Gib- son and Christine Williams, authors of Functional Foods: Concept to Prod- uct, a food is generally considered functional if it can be demonstrated to “aff ect benefi cially one or more target functions of the body, beyond ade- quate nutrition, in a way that improves health and well- being or reduces the risk of disease.” Moreover, a functional food must remain a food. Th at is to say, it must remain in its “natural” state or as close to it as possible. Th e food may be altered so that a positive component is included, deleteri- ous component excluded, or one or more of its components modifi ed to affi x a benefi t, but it must remain “whole” and not pro cessed into, say, a capsule, tablet, or powder.67 Of course, as some have pointed out, all foods are potentially functional, provided someone makes an empirical case.68 For example, if it can be scientifi cally determined that fl avonoids in grape- fruits, omega- 3 fatty acids in chicken eggs, sulforaphane in broccoli, lyco- pene in tomatoes, and resveratrol in red wine improve par tic u lar bodily functions or reduce the risk of certain diseases, then those foods are tech- nically functional.

Kimchi is the epitome of functionality— if you trust the abundance of kimchi research that has proliferated since the early 1990s. According to Kun- Young Park and Sook- Hee Rhee, a research pair from Pusan National

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University in South Korea, the functional characteristics of baechu kimchi include (but are not limited to) increased appetite, decreased body fats, prevention of constipation and colon cancer, decreased serum cholesterol, increased fi brinolytic activity, anti- oxidative and anti- aging eff ects, anti- atherosclerotic eff ects, anti- cancer eff ects, and increased immune functions. Kimchi is a low- caloric food that contains high levels of vitamins, min- erals, dietary fi bers, and “other functional components.” Individual ingre- dients provide specifi c benefi cial elements: vitamin C, potassium, and β- sitosterol from cabbage; polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamins A and C, calcium, and capsaicinoid from chile powder; alliin, allicin, and diallysul- fi de from garlic; niacin, potassium, and gingerol from ginger; protein and iron from fermented anchovy; chlorophyll and sulfur compound from green onion; and so forth.69

But more than any other single factor, what makes kimchi a super- food is the very item that our kimchi from Queens has boldly blazoned on the jar— lactic acid bacteria.70 As pointed out in the Health magazine article, kimchi’s “biggest benefi t may be in its ‘healthy bacteria’ called lactobacilli.”71 Th e presence of live microorganisms, and specifi cally lac- tic acid– producing bacteria, defi nes kimchi as much as any other single ingredient, including salt, cabbage, or chiles. What makes kimchi kim- chi, in other words, is fermentation, a food- preservation method that encourages, in the words of Stuart Th orne, author of Th e History of Food Preservation, “the growth of harmless bacteria or other micro- organisms in the food to the exclusion of those that would cause the food to become harmful or unpalatable.”72 Kimchi is probiotic, meaning it is a food con- taining live active cultures, such as bacteria and yeast, that provide nutri- tional benefi ts. Other notable probiotic foods include dairy products like yogurt and some cheeses, and vegetable products like sauerkraut.

Aside from preserving food, fermentation converts indigestible mat- ter, such as raw wheat or soybeans, into edible products like bread or tempeh.73 All told, the category of fermented food consists of foods and beverages that span considerable historical time and cultural geography: both ancient and new comestibles, including meat products like salami, chorizo, and other cured sausages; bread products like dosa, injera, and sourdough; vegetable products like pickles, olives, miso, soy sauce, and poi; and all alcohol, including beer, wine, and spirits. Moreover, fermenta- tion changes, if not improves, the gustatory character of the original in- gredients, oft en imparting a tangy or zesty taste.

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Perhaps unexpectedly, fermentation plays a crucial role in the produc- tion of commonplace foods such as vanilla, coff ee, and chocolate.74 Va- nilla, a member of the orchid family indigenous to the rainforests of the Americas, develops its winsome aroma and fl avor only aft er its string bean– like pods have been cured and fermented.75 Likewise, the beguiling attributes of chocolate would not be possible without the proper pro- cessing of another New World produce, cacao beans, which must undergo several days of fermentation prior to toasting and grinding to produce cocoa, the basis for all chocolate.76 And the seeds (i.e., beans) of the coff ee plant, generally thought to have originated in east Africa and initially commercialized by Arab merchants, require fermentation prior to roast- ing and grinding before being metamorphosed into an espresso, café Americano, or Starbucks Frappuccino. Intriguingly, the world’s most ex- pensive coff ee beans are reportedly found in the droppings of the civet, a nocturnal, catlike animal native to Southeast Asia. As described by Nor- imitsu Onishi in an April 17, 2010, New York Times article, the animal feasts on ripe coff ee cherries and “eventually excretes the hard, indigest- ible innards of the fruit— essentially, incipient beans— though only aft er they have been fermented in the animal’s stomach acids and enzymes to produce a brew described as smooth, chocolaty and devoid of any bitter aft ertaste.” Th is civet coff ee from the Philippines and Indonesia can sell in Japan and South Korea, the product’s biggest market, for about $227 a pound.77

In addition to keeping fi gures slim, impeding cancer, and slowing the aging pro cess, kimchi is reputed to ward off diabetes.78 During the 2003 SARS scare in Asia, Koreans boasted that kimchi kept them immune.79 Riding this tidal wave of positive global publicity of kimchi’s healthful- ness, the Korean company LG Electronics launched a new air conditioner equipped with a fi lter made from kimchi, claiming that kimchi kills the H5N1, aka the bird fl u, virus.80 Not surprisingly, the miraculous health value and healing power of kimchi are not without detractors. Skeptics point to what might be called the Korean paradox— although kimchi may very well be a superfood for a number of scientifi cally credible reasons, gastric cancer among Koreans is ten times that of Americans. Most likely to blame is the high level of salt in the numerous variety of fermented foods that are the foundation of the Korean diet, including soy sauce, soy paste, chile paste, preserved fi sh, and, yes, kimchi.81

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“Kimchi Is Korean Territory!”

Just as kimchi by nature takes many forms, our kimchi from Queens has many names. Th e label boasts no less than six descriptive epithets in two languages, including, “Specially Licensed Living Lactic Acid Bacteria Kimchi” (in Korean), “Patent IH- 22 Lactic Acid Bacteria Kimchi” (in En- glish), “White Kimchi” (Korean), “New York Kimchi” (En glish), “Great- tasting Kimchi without the Smell” (En glish), and, most confounding, “Dok- do Kimchi Produced by Dr. Kang and Kum Kang San Restaurant” (En glish). Look closely and you see that the Dok- do reference does not end there. It occurs again when the label proclaims in En glish, “Nutritional value increases when Dok- do Kimchi is fully fermented.”82

Th ere is also a third reference: at the lower right- hand corner of the label is a business logo (or so I assume), an iconic image of what appears to be a rocky island with a pair of gull- like birds hovering above. Below the island are the words “DOK- DO CORP.” Encircling the top of the logo, like a rainbow, are the words, “Dok- Do (Dok Island) is Korea’s Ter- ritory.” Evidently, involved somehow with either the production or dis- tribution of this kimchi is a company called Dok- Do Corp. But why does its slogan (if it is indeed a slogan) sound more jingoistic than mercantile? Who or what is Dok- Do and what does it have to do with this jar of kim- chi from Queens?

While “Dok- Do” may not mean anything to most Americans, for con- temporary Koreans it is no less than a matter of nation, self, and Korean identity. Embedded in the term is not only the tragic legacy of war and poverty of the previous century, but also the humiliation of ethnic impo- tency stemming from nearly a half- century of Japa nese colonialism. Th e utterance of the term is enough to evoke in legions of Koreans a melan- choly feeling that Koreans call han.83 For some this is quite literally a matter of life, death, and limbs. Th is was aptly illustrated in 2005, when two South Koreans, in an unlikely act of synchronous auto- amputation, each cut off a fi nger at a public demonstration in Seoul. An el der ly woman employed a pair of gardening shears, and her middle- aged son followed suit with a meat cleaver. In an apparent attempt to outshine this formida- ble mother and son tandem, another man set himself on fi re. (He survived with severe burns to his neck and body.) Several other protesters, meanwhile,

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chose instead to burn the Japa nese fl ag as a phalanx of riot police strug- gled to restrain the chaotic demonstrations.

Only a couple of months earlier, however, the atmosphere was consid- erably more serene, if not deceptively sanguine. Th e South Korean and Japa nese governments had, with great fanfare, just announced plans to commemorate forty years of diplomatic relations. (A momentous treaty to normalize basic relations between the two countries was ratifi ed in June 1965.) Th is was the latest attempt by the two nations to put aside a history of hostility and rancor, at least diplomatically, and to let bygones be by- gones so that they might mutually benefi t from their close geographic proximity, common economic interests, and strong cultural ties.84

Unfortunately, the celebration imploded, leading to severed fi ngers and a scorched torso, when Japan chose that moment to reiterate its terri- torial claims to two tiny rocky islets nestled between the Korean peninsula and the Japa nese archipelago. Th e name of these islets, situated some 133 miles off the Korean eastern shore and 99 miles from Japan’s Oki Island,

Jar detail of Dok-Do Corporation logo.

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depends on whom you ask. Westerners call them Liancourt Rocks, a name passed on by mid- nineteenth- century French whalers and subsequently adopted by Eu ro pe an explorers and writers.85 Th e Japa nese call them Takeshima. Th e Koreans call them Dokdo. (“Dok” is the name of the is- lets; “do” is the Korean word for island.)

A rancorous battle over territorial claim to the two islets, along with thirty- two or thirty- three even smaller outcrops, with a total surface area of a mere fi ft y- two acres, has raged since the end of World War II. With Japan’s unconditional surrender to the Allies in 1945 came the end of Japan’s colonial rule over Korea, which began in 1910. (At the end of the Russo- Japanese War in 1905, a Japa nese protectorate was installed over Korea.) In addition to restoring Korea’s in de pen dence, Japan was com- pelled to relinquish control of all Korean territories. Th is apparently in- cluded Dokdo, which the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers specifi cally excluded from Japa nese jurisdiction.86 On January 18, 1952, President Syngman Rhee of South Korea issued a presidential proclama- tion that delineated what he believed was the Korean portion of the Sea of Japan, or, as the Koreans insist it be called, the East Sea. (Not surprisingly, the naming of this body of water is yet another hotly debated topic be- tween the two countries.) Th is Peace Line (aka Rhee Line) placed Dokdo squarely on the Korean side. Japan, however, lodged a protest and asserted its own sovereignty over the rocks. Th e Rhee government in turn dismissed Japan’s claim, insisting on Korea’s own ership under historical and legal grounds.87 Th e dispute between the two parties over Dokdo/Takeshima has remained acrimonious ever since.

According to a position paper released by Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Aff airs in 2004, Japan’s claim to Takeshima dates back to at least the mid- dle of the seventeenth century.88 Th e paper asserts that authoritative maps and documents from the period clearly indicate that “Japan has long known about the existence of Takeshima.” Th e Tokugawa shogunate granted two Japa nese families feudal tenure of Takeshima, which was a stopover port for travelers to Utsuryo Island (aka Dagelet Island) and for Japa nese fi shermen. More important than these seventeenth- century cir- cumstances to Japan’s case, however, are the events of 1905, when, in the words of John Van Dyke, “Japan reaffi rmed its intention to possess Takeshima by a Cabinet decision in January, followed by a notifi cation by Shimane Prefecture in February, offi cially incorporating Takeshima as part of Shimane Prefecture.”89

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Japan’s 1905 claim of Takeshima is under the legal cover of terra nul- lius, or “no- man’s land.” (Recall that 1905 was the year Korea was declared a Japa nese protectorate.) Under international law, a land deemed terra nul- lius is subject to “discovery” and “occupation” so long as it is not “under any sovereignty” or “belongs to no state” at the time of occupation.90 Aus- tralia, Canada, eastern Greenland, Western Sahara, the Hanish Islands in the Red Sea, the Island of Palmas in the Philippines archipelago, and the West Bank are notable examples in which terra nullius was evoked at one time or another by various parties to claim that a land was theirs to keep since it previously belonged to no one.91

Th e Koreans emphatically maintain that Dokdo has always belonged to them, or at least since AD 512, when the Silla kingdom conquered Ul- leungdo, an island seventy- fi ve miles off of Korea’s eastern shore. Th e fact that Japan has never challenged Korean sovereignty over Ulleungdo is considered signifi cant because Dokdo, which lies about fi ft y- fi ve miles to the south of Ulleungdo, is a de pen den cy or appendage of Ulleungdo, argue Korean scholars. (It is said that Dokdo is visible from Ullengdo on a clear day; this, to some, constitutes defi nitive proof of appendage.) Moreover, numerous maps and documents that date from the start of the fi ft eenth century to the end of the nineteenth reputedly confi rm Korea’s adminis- trative control over both Ulleungdo and Dokdo. Th e Korean side points to Japa nese historical rec ords that, while making direct references to Ul- leungdo and Dokdo, either fail to indicate them as Japa nese possessions or allude to them as Korean territories.92 As for the 1905 incorporation of Dokdo under the jurisdiction of Shimane prefecture, the Korean view is that Korea simply was unable at that time to prevent this illegal action from taking place due to its relative lack of power vis-à- vis Japan, which had by then forcibly assumed control of all Korean po liti cal aff airs under the 1904 Protectorate Treaty.93

When it comes to Korean resolve over possessing ultimate control of Dokdo’s destiny, the gloves are off — even if some of them have only four fi ngers. Following the Japa nese protest of President Rhee’s proclamation, there has been a continual Korean presence on Dokdo of one or two fi sh- ing families and a cadre of guards and police. In eff ect, South Korea has had de facto possession of Dokdo since the end of Japa nese rule. Over the past de cades, South Korea has assiduously expanded Dokdo’s infrastruc- ture by building a harbor, a light house, a desalination plant, a he li cop ter pad, and tourist facilities.94 Numerous nongovernmental groups with the

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sole mission of opposing Japan’s claim to the islets have surfaced during this time.95

Dokdo in name and image has become ubiquitous throughout South Korea. It appears on postage stamps (2.2 million were sold in three hours for the 2004 release) and even as the name of restaurants and other busi- nesses. Th e slogan “Dokdo Is Our Land” (or “Dokdo Is Korean Territory”) has become an unoffi cial national motto. Th e phrase is emblazoned on T-shirts and other apparel, fl ags and banners, and stuff ed animals and various other toys; it also appears in pop u lar songs and amateur YouTube videos. (And, as we have discovered, it also adorns American kimchi jars.) Schoolchildren and their grandparents alike utter the words with equal mea sures of pride and indignation. Mass protests are customary whenever Japan lays any sort of public claim over Takeshima. Demonstrators came out in droves in the early 2000s, when Japan approved schoolbooks identi- fying Takeshima as Japa nese territory. Th ey occurred again in 2004, when Shimane prefecture passed a resolution declaring February 22, the day the islands were incorporated into the prefecture in 1905, as Takeshima Day.96

South Korean postage stamps depicting Dokdo. Th e caption in the large middle square reads, “Our Beautiful Land Dokdo!”

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In 2005, as if fearful that its claims to Dokdo might go unnoticed, the South Korean government launched a 14,000- ton military transport ship, the largest of its class in Asia, capable of carry ing up to seven hundred troops, ten he li cop ters, six tanks, seven amphibious vehicles, and two landing boats. It was christened Dokdo.97 When Japan lodged a protest against the naming of the vessel, a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokes- man replied, “Protests from the Japa nese government are tantamount to a serious act of aggression on South Korean sovereignty.”98 When North Korea and South Korea entertained a short- lived idea to fi eld a single team for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the two sides decided on “Ko- rea” as the team name, with Dokdo pictured on the team fl ag.99

Be that as it may, a perplexing question remains before us: why is Dokdo referred to not just once but three times on a bottle of kimchi pro- duced by a restaurant halfway around the world in New York City? As a slogan, “Dokdo Is Korean Territory” is not so much an expression of legal reality but a fl agrant rebuttal of Japan’s claim over the disputed islets. It also reaffi rms the unshakeable notion that Japan is a permanent symbol of Korea’s abuser and injurer. Why would a Korean restaurant in Flushing, Queens (of all places), raise the specter of the evil Japa nese Empire (of all things) in order to sell (of all things) a jar of kimchi? And why would it do so some sixty years aft er Korea’s liberation from Japa nese colonialism? What can our kimchi maker from Queens gain from perpetuating Japan- ophobia in this abstruse, if not underhanded, manner?

Odoriferous Food Fight

Once upon a time: before South Korea began to sparkle like a digital me- tropolis under the global spotlight of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul; before South Korea’s near- miraculous semi- fi nal terminus at the 2002 FIFA World Cup co- hosted by South Korea and Japan;100 before Korean pop u lar music (aka K-Pop) groups like S.E.S., Dong Bang Shin Ki, and the Wonder Girls lit up music charts from Japan to Taiwan to the United States and beyond; before tele vi sion dramas like Gyeoul Yeonga (Winter sonata), Pul Hauseu (Full house), and Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the palace) became global exports every bit as signifi cant as Korean- made cars and cellular phones; before these dramas were turned into Disneyfi ed theme parks that attract millions of foreign tourists to South Korea; before mega-

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stars like Yong- Joon Bae (aka Yon- sama), Young- Ae Lee, Rain (Ji- Hoon Jung), and PSY became house hold names in countries both near and far; before the fi gure skater Yu- Na Kim became the most beloved Olympic athlete in South Korean history and the American short- track speed skater Apolo Ohno the most despised; before the rival South Korean fried chicken chains Kyochon and Bon Chon vied for supremacy of Manhat- tan K-Town’s lunch crowd; before the South Korean government’s un- likely campaign to elevate Korean food into “the top fi ve rank of world cuisines” by 2017;101 before kimchi took on its global reputation as a miracle superfood; and before South Korea began exporting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of kimchi overseas— or, once upon a time: be- fore hallyu (the Korean Wave) transformed contemporary Korean cul- ture into a global and transnational commodity, kimchi was thought to be something utterly off - putting, unconsumable, and, most of all, mias- mal by non- Koreans.

Writing in 1898, William Franklin Sands, an American, recalled the squalor of Korea, especially the horrid smell of kimchi, “the national con- diment,” he called it, “made of cabbage and turnips well rotted together.”102 In 1906 another American, Homer Hulbert, referred to kimchi as Korea’s favorite sauerkraut, “whose proximity is detected without the aid of the eye.”103 In 1928 H. B. Drake, an En glishman, wrote of kimchi, which he called “the native pickle,” “whose reek of sour vinegar pervades the whole atmosphere of Korea.”104 In a 1950 article about Korea’s “Unpretty Pickle,” the New York Times reported that Westerners were known to complain that kimchi was—“to quote the milder critics”—“highly malodorous,” “abominable,” and “off ensive.”105 In 1951 Cornelius Osgood, then curator of anthropology at the Yale Peabody Museum, said of “the Korean na- tional dish”: “To the natives it smells good, to most foreigners it simply smells.”106 During the mid- 1980s another En glishman, Simon Winchester, wrote of a Korean innkeeper’s tureen of age- old cabbage and turnip soused in sour vinegar, brine, garlic, and red chiles: a “sorry- looking mess.” When it was brought to him for breakfast, his stomach gave “an unpleasant little nudge to the back of [his] throat,” and he desperately longed for a soft - boiled egg or a bowl of Weetabix with milk. Earlier, he had groused about “the pungent sourness of strong kimchi from the house next door.”107

Th e fi eld of cultural encounters between Koreans and foreigners is full of kimchi sagas of the following sort as reiterated by Kyung- Koo Han: a Korean traveler hand carries a jar of kimchi into a transpacifi c airline jet

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only to have the cap blow off due to air pressure changes in the cabin, forc- ing the other three hundred passengers to endure the hellish smell of kim- chi for the duration of the overnight fl ight.108 (Th is allegorical tale cautions us that kimchi is a rare example of a food— not a drink— that is carbonated and is prone to expand under pressure if stored in an airtight container.) Given its current loft y culinary status, it is hard to believe that for most of my lifetime kimchi, and particularly its funky smell, was a source of shame and self- contempt for Koreans from Seoul to Honolulu, from Los Angeles to New York City.

My, how things have changed. Koreans everywhere now proudly de- clare that kimchi is their favorite food, even as kimchi consumption among the younger generation is in steady decline. Once the symbol of poverty and embarrassment, kimchi has become a “legitimate food”— that is, a food any open- minded foreigner is sure to fi nd delicious. Any non- Korean who disdains kimchi betrays his own cultural provincial- ism and culinary naiveté— or so Koreans are wont to believe. Th is atti- tude, according to Han, amounts to Korea’s “declaration of in de pen dence of taste.”109

But while Koreans continue to yearn for foreigners to embrace kimchi, it is the Japa nese manufacturers who have had greater success internation- alizing it. During the late 1990s the Japa nese controlled a surprising 80 percent of the global kimchi trade, with export markets in dozens of coun- tries. As a result, many around the world believe kimchi to be of Japa nese origin and know it only by the Japa nese name kimuchi. Koreans, of course, found this extremely annoying and irksome. And even before Japan had the temerity to lobby the Olympic Committee at the 1996 Atlanta Games to name kimuchi— not kimchi— as an offi cial Olympic food,110 the indig- nant Koreans took the case before the world’s highest food arbiter, the Codex Alimentarius Commission.111

Established in 1963 by the Food and Agriculture Or ga ni za tion (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Health Or ga ni za tion (WHO), the Codex Alimentarius Commission develops “food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme.” In other words, the commission establishes standards and guidelines as a way to settle disputes involving the interna- tional export of food between rival nations.112 (John Feff er calls it the “Su- preme Court of Food.”)113 As of 2010 offi cial Codex Standards had been established for nearly three hundred food products.114

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In December 1995 the Korean government formally submitted to the commission a proposal to establish a code of practice and Codex standard for kimchi. In June 1996 the Executive Committee at the Tenth Session of Codex Coordinating Committee for Asia approved the proposal. A year later the Korean delegation submitted its proposed draft standard to the Eleventh Session. Finally, in June 2001, aft er nearly fi ve years of amend- ments and deliberation, the Twenty- fourth Session of the Codex Alimen- tarius Commission adopted Korea’s draft standard as the offi cial Codex Standard. (A year earlier, the Pro cessed Fruits and Vegetables Subcommit- tee decided that products using the name “kimchi” had to be fermented according to methods codifi ed by Korean manufacturers.) Th is immedi- ately gave Korean exporters a leg up against Japan, their traditional nem- esis in most things, in the battle for the world’s kimchi markets.115

Th e Codex Standard (CODEX STAN 223- 2001) defi nes kimchi as a product prepared from defect- free Chinese cabbage (Brassica pekinesis) that has been salted, rinsed, and drained; seasoned with mainly red pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) powder, radish, garlic, ginger, and other alliums (such as chive and leek); and “fermented before or aft er being packaged into appropriate containers to ensure proper ripening and preservation of the product by lactic acid production at low temperatures.” Other allowable ingredients are fruits, vegetables, sesame seeds, nuts, sugars, salted and fermented seafood, glutinous rice paste, and wheat- fl our paste. A limited number of additives are permitted, including fl avor enhancers (e.g., mono- sodium glutamate, disodium guanylate), textualizers (sorbitol), and thick- ening and stabilizing agents (xanthan gum). Th e product must be red in color, with the redness “originating from red pepper.” It must have a hot and salty (and an optional sour) taste and be “reasonably fi rm, crisp, and chewy.” Moreover, the standard mandated that the “name of the product shall be ‘Kimchi.’ ”116

Not kimuchi. Japa nese makers rebuked the committee’s decision to establish what they saw as a culinarily narrow, if not po liti cally biased, defi nition of kimchi— and with reason. A principal factor in the global success of the Japa nese product was precisely its milder taste, which ap- pealed to a broader audience. Kimuchi was typically less spicy and salty, and not as sour as Korean kimchi. And many Japa nese brands skipped the fermentation pro cess altogether, once again to better suit a more general palate. (Recall that fermented foods have an added zestfulness and zing to them.)

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Kimuchi, in this regard, is very much in keeping with the Japa nese culinary tradition called asazuke, which are lightly or briefl y pickled veg- etables. Th e asazuke in turn belongs under the all- embracing category of tsukemono, which denotes all pickled foods. According to Shizuo Tsuji, tsukemono is a “vast domain in Japa nese cuisine.” He adds, “Rice and pickles are to the Japa nese what bread and cheese are to the En glish, and French bread and wine to the French.”117 To Naomichi Ishige, pickles, as an accompaniment to the “equally indispensable rice,” are a symbol of an “authentic” Japa nese meal.”118

Th ere are several main methods or types of Japa nese pickling, includ- ing salt (shiozuke), rice- brand (nukazuke), soy sauce (shoyuzuke), miso (misozuke), sake- lees (kasuzuke), vinegar (suzuke), and rice- mold (koji- zuke). While the term “tsukemono” can apply to seafood, it more oft en refers to countless vegetable and fruit products, each with its own distinc- tive history and fl avor. Among the more notable is umeboshi, a shiozuke made of a dried and pickled Japa nese apricot called ume. Umeboshi is a common feature of bento (boxed meal) and is oft en found at the core of onigiri (rice balls). It is said the sourness and saltiness of umeboshi are so intense that the mere mention of it brings about puckered lips and salivat- ing mouths to those familiar with it.119

Another prominent example is takuan, a nukazuke made of daikon (a type of radish). It is said that a seventh- century Buddhist priest named Takuan invented the pickle and introduced it to the Japa nese diet. “Hot rice with takuan is as common on Japa nese tables as bread and butter in America,” remarks Tsuji.120 Takuan is pop u lar among Koreans as well. Called danmuji in Korean, it is an indispensable fi lling for and ac- companiment with gimbap (Korean rolled sushi similar to the Japa nese makizushi). It is also a standard side dish, along with kimchi and raw on- ions, for jjajangmyeon (the Chinese- Korean noodle dish topped with a black soybean- paste sauce). As a food category, tsukemono is analogous to the broader notion of kimchi, which is not limited to the baechu variety but refers to hundreds of preparations. Japa nese tsukemono, however, is typically less pungent than Korean kimchi, keeping with the general rule that the Japa nese prefer their food less fi ery and fi erce than the Koreans do. Both pickled products, however, are essential to the cuisines of either country, as they provide the necessary counterbalancing taste of salti- ness and sourness to diets that revolve around the otherwise bland staple of rice.

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To Korean kimchi producers, Japan’s eff orts to dominate the global kimchi trade was less an economic issue than a cultural one— or at least this is how their publicity and marketing strategy couched it. Th ey charged that kimuchi eroded kimchi’s “authenticity.” “What the Japa nese are sell- ing is nothing more than cabbage sprinkled with seasonings and artifi cial fl avoring,” cried a representative of Doosan Corporation, which operates one of South Korea’s largest kimchi factories. “Th is debate is not just about protecting our market share,” he added. “We are trying to preserve our national heritage.” Th e Japa nese countered that once “ethnic” dishes gain international popularity, they are usually altered to fi t the local palate. In eff ect, they argued, Korea does not have an inherent or automatic monop- oly on kimchi— at least no more than, say, Italy has a monopoly on pizza, Germany on the hot dog, or Japan on sushi.

“Should the same standard be applied to curry?” asked an adviser to the Japan Pickle Producers Association. “Everyone knows that curry was invented in India, but the curry that Indians eat is quite diff erent from the curry that Japa nese eat.”121 As Lizzie Collingham has noted, “Th e Japa nese love curry.” Th ey eat it with rice (karee raisu), with noodles (ka- ree udon), and tucked inside bread (karee pan). In 1982 Japa nese children voted curry as their favorite national school- lunch program meal, and it was once one of three dishes— along with pork cutlets (tonkatsu) and stir- fried vegetables— most oft en prepared for dinner in Japa nese homes. Even as early as the 1890s an infl uential Japa nese food critic deemed curry, as paraphrased by Michael Ashkenazi and Jeanne Jacob, “the food of the future, one that would bring Japan from an age of culinary barbarism to culinary and healthful heights of modernity.”122 As oft en repeated by both devotees and distracters, the contemporary version of Japa nese curry is nothing anyone familiar with the cuisines of South Asia, or even the cur- ries of Great Britain or the Ca rib be an, for that matter, would recognize. First introduced to Japan by British merchant ships docked at the port of Yokohama, curry— along with other yoshoku (Western foods) like cutlets, croquettes, ice cream, bread, and beef— became a favorite among the well- heeled and fashionable Japa nese during the Meiji era.123 Th e opening of a curry museum in Yokohama in 2003 commemorated the importance of curry’s arrival to and everlasting legacy not only in Japan but also in Korea, where Japa nese curry is much loved.

Be that as it may, in Japan’s challenge for supremacy of the global kimchi market, Koreans found yet other reason to perpetuate a feeling of

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enmity toward their neighbor and one- time colonizer. In this regard the battle over kimchi is not so diff erent from the battle over two tiny islets with a disputed own ership (Korea or Japan?) and name (Dokdo or Takeshima?) in the middle of a sea whose name (Sea of Japan or East Sea?), in turn, is also a battleground. When it comes to any squabble that in- volves Japan, Koreans fi nd it virtually impossible to remain dispassionate or nonpartisan. Our Patent IH- 22 Lactic Acid Bacteria Kimchi is proof that for Koreans even as far away as Queens, kimchi is not merely a matter of culinary culture but nationalist politics. Kimchi and Dokdo are one and the same. Kimchi is Dokdo and Dokdo is kimchi. Both are Korean terri- tories. Neither is terra nullius. Any claim otherwise is tantamount to a declaration of war.

But even as Korean kimchi manufacturers struggled to defend their place in the global kimchi market against the Japa nese challenge, China had by this time become an even greater threat. Import of Chinese- made kimchi to both Korea and Japan dramatically rose during the fi rst de cade of the twenty- fi rst century. According to one estimate, in 2002 China sold a little over a thousand tons of kimchi to South Korea; just a year later it approached twenty- thousand tons.124 Chinese kimchi, at nearly half the cost of locally produced kimchi, is consumed at highway restaurants, schools, and rehabilitation facilities throughout South Korea, and unlike the Japa nese variety, most Koreans cannot tell it is imported due to its similarity to domestically produced kimchi.125

Nonetheless, claiming that test samples have been found to contain eggs of parasitic worms, the South Korean government temporarily banned the importation of Chinese kimchi in 2005. In return, Chinese manufacturers accused the South Koreans of “looking for any reason to crush Chinese kimchi.” Beijing immediately retaliated by banning edible imports from South Korea, claiming Korean- produced kimchi and other foods were also infested with parasite eggs. Complicating matters further was the fact that Chinese kimchi factories were frequently owned and operated by South Korean entrepreneurs seeking cheaper materials and labor in China, and they apparently bore the brunt of this trade quar- rel.126 Ironically, the Codex Standard that the Korean manufacturers had feverishly worked to establish in order to compete against Japa nese kimuchi contributed to the fl ooding of Chinese kimchi into the South Korean market.

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The Declining Signifi cance of Stench

Despite the remarkable reputation make over enjoyed by the dish in recent years, the odorous power of kimchi has not been forgotten. If anything, it has only grown in legend. In fact, kimchi’s funky smell has come to de- fi ne the thing itself every bit as much as the dish’s redness or spiciness. It seems the specter of kimchi’s fetor rises whenever Koreans or Korean Americans are the subject of conversation, irrespective of whether the topic is food focused or not. In a 2005 New York Times article on the social etiquettes (or the lack thereof) of air travel, the “attack” on the nose by “strongly aromatic foods like the Korean kimchi,” which “can really stink up a cabin,” was lumped together with someone jamming a knee into the back of a seat or unabashedly viewing a pornographic movie on a portable DVD player as examples of impoliteness while fl ying coach.127

In a 2008 essay about the Los Angeles transit system, D. J. Waldie wrote of how passengers “redefi ne personal space and reorder social dis- tinctions” and cited “the pretty girl talking in Tagalog,” “the beaten- down domestic worker,” “the man reading his Bible,” “the iPod- addicted boy,” and the “slight man reeking of kimchi” as examples of “a diminished ver- sion of real Angelenos.”128 Th at same year a sports reporter commented on the “smell of garlic and kimchi” in the halls of a hotel where several Ko- rean members of the Ladies Professional Golf Association were lodged during a tournament in Danville, California.129 And in September 2009, when First Lady Yoon- ok Kim of South Korea, with chef Jean- Georges Vongerichten and actress Moon Bloodgood by her side, visited a group of New York– area veterans of the Korean War, it was reported that the “strong smell of kimchi was a running joke among the American veterans.”130

On July 23, 2009, the Los Angeles Times labeled kimchi one of the most “odoriferous global foods.”131 Of course, gastronomically speaking, this is not necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, for devotees of durian, lutefi sk, Limburger cheese, stinky tofu, and other foods that take olfaction to the edge, there is the sublime in miasma. But for a newly modernized South Korea, and among Korean Americans self- conscious about appear- ing too unsophisticated, bumpkin- like, or primitively exotic, the smell of kimchi is a predestined vexation— one that must be minimized by what ever

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means necessary. One strategy is provided by South Korea’s electronic in- dustry in the form of a product specially engineered to store kimchi— and only kimchi. Th e kimchi refrigerator not only maintains the optimal tem- peratures necessary for proper storage of diff erent types of kimchi, but also quarantines it (and its socially pernicious fumes) from other foods. Samsung, Daewoo, LG, and Dimchae, among other companies, sell a long line of them, ranging in price from a few hundred to several thousand dol-

Advertisement for Daewoo Electronic’s Klasse kimchi refrigerator.

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lars per unit. Purportedly, kimchi refrigerators top the list of gift s desired by newlywed Korean brides.

Th en there is the ontological solution to cope with the smell: many Koreans are convinced that the sole barrier standing in the way of Korean cuisine becoming truly global— like, say, Chinese or Japa nese food— is the strong odor of kimchi, which accompanies most, if not all, Korean meals. Kimchi manufacturers, therefore, have resorted to what basically amounts to the nuclear option, doing what was no doubt unthinkable when kimchi was factory produced for the fi rst time in history in 1967.132 Many of today’s mass producers of kimchi have begun— at least for the time being— to reboot kimchi to make it less spicy, less salty, and less odorous. In other words, in what can only be described as a cruel twist of fermentation irony, Koreans are modeling Korean kimchi aft er Japa nese kimuchi.

Some have taken the challenge even further. Soon- ja Kim, South Korea’s fi rst “kimchi master,” a designation bestowed on her in 2007 by the South Korean Food Ministry, secured a patent in 2009 for the fi rst deodor- ized kimchi. Her invention, a freeze- dried kimchi, remains odorless even aft er it is reconstituted. “When it soaks in water either hot or cold for a few minutes, it will become just like ordinary kimchi,” claims the inventor. She wagers that the product will appeal not only to a potentially limitless number of foreigners, but also to Koreans who wish to avoid the all- too- common faux pas of, say, “kimchi breath,” among other social embarrass- ments linked to irrepressible kimchi fumes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the fi rst order Kim received was from Japan.133

Which returns us to our kimchi from Queens, aka New York Kimchi, aka White Kimchi, aka Dokdo Kimchi, aka the “Great- tasting Kimchi without the smell!” By all accounts, this par tic u lar kimchi was no techno- logical marvel. It comes nowhere close to rivaling Soon- ja Kim’s deodor- ized kimchi or the “space kimchi” that South Korea’s fi rst astronaut packed for his journey to the International Space Station aboard the Rus sian spaceship Soyuz in 2008. According to Sang- Hun Choe’s New York Times article, “Star Ship Kimchi: A Bold Taste Goes Where It Has Never Gone Before,” published in February 24, 2008, the astronaut’s kimchi was a bona fi de space- age wonder that cost “millions of dollars and several years of perfecting” by three top South Korean government research institutes working to produce a “version of kimchi that would not turn dangerous when exposed to cosmic rays or other forms of radiation and would not

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put off non- Korean astronauts with its pungency.”134 (While lactic acid bacteria are harmless on earth, scientists were concerned the microbes might unpredictably mutate and turn dangerous in space.)

Despite my mother- in- law’s contention that our Queens kimchi was a special kimchi fortifi ed with cutting- edge scientifi c technology, compared to the space kimchi, it was quite ordinary. Th is isn’t to say that it wasn’t delicious, however. It absolutely was, but in a run- of- the- mill sort of way. In other words, it could have been served anywhere Koreans live in large numbers— say, Seoul, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Queens— and no native eater of kimchi would think it odd or in anyway dubious. In fi nal consideration, then, the fact that it was produced in Queens, New York, had no bearing on whether or not this kimchi was authentic, the real deal. In fact, the only dubious thing about it was not something in the jar but on it. George Brown Goode, director of the United States National Museum during the 1870s, once said of the curatorial pro cess, “Th e most important thing about an exhibition was the label.”135 A variation on the theme of his dictum applies nicely here: the most dubious thing about our Queens kim- chi was the label.

As a baek (white) kimchi, our Dokdo kimchi from the land of Archie Bunker was by its nature less malodorous than the typical baechu kimchi. Boasting about the relative inodorousness of baek kimchi, therefore, is akin to bragging that a Chicago- style pizza has a thicker crust than a New York– style pizza. But in stating the obvious and making it appear to be a desirable technological achievement, our Queens kimchi becomes em- blematic of the state of kimchi in the twenty- fi rst century— a culturally chauvinistic, profi t- driven, industrially produced commercial product that denotes, if not augurs, cosmopolitanism, sophistication, and a New Age wellness of body.

Coda

It is a common sight for those who frequent Korean restaurants in New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and other cities with a sizable Korean American population: Latinos, mainly Mexican and other Central Ameri- can men, busing tables, laying out place settings, pouring water, replacing dying embers with glowing red charcoal for tabletop grills, washing dishes, sweeping fl oors, and increasingly doing most of the cooking. Drop by

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these restaurants during off hours and you see these descendants of indig- enous Americans, men whom Columbus, if he were alive today, might very well call “Indians,” taking their meals before the rush. Look closely and see them devouring platefuls of kimchi with gusto—kimchi not only full of vitamins, fi ber, and antioxidants, but also fi ery red chiles.

How is this for coming full circle? Columbus gets lost, discovers America. He misnames the people and misnames the chile. Other Eu ro pe- ans soon follow, including the Portuguese, whose domination of the chile trade spreads to India, Japan, Korea, and beyond. Th e Koreans, although initially slow to act, rename it gochu and eventually make it an essential ingredient in their cuisine, especially in kimchi, their national dish.

Fast forward to the late twentieth century. Koreans in great numbers emigrate from their homeland to form multiple diasporic communities around the world, including New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, where they join an even greater number of Central Americans who were always already there, even before Columbus made his navigational blun- der. Today, many of these New World Indians fi nd employment in Korean businesses, including in kimchi factories, where they are charged with making a dish that was once the exclusive domain of Korean women. Th ey also fi nd work in restaurants such as Kum Gang San in Queens, where they, along with the heterogeneous and multifarious customers they serve, consume large quantities of chile- laden Korean fare. In the pro cess, they revel in the heat of the very item their pre- Columbian ancestors fi rst culti- vated and infused in the original cuisine of the Americas, but which is now spread worldwide, becoming the second most used spice in the world, second only to its culinary alter ego, the black pepper, Columbus’ elusive white whale.

Yes, when it comes to diasporic and transnational Korean identity, blood, coagulated by nostalgic nationalism, is oft en thicker than water. However, given the contested state of kimchi in this era of rapid global- ization, mass migration, and heightened industrialization of indigenous foodways, blood isn’t as thick as kimchi juice, which is now, more oft en than not, the color of blood— and less odoriferous.

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