#92 Autumn Travels Part I: Salt, Kimchi, and Bean Curd

[스티븐스 대사]

The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries created the Rural-20 project to promote Korea’s rural areas to travelers.  Here we are at a salt farm in Jeungdo.

Greetings, netizens.  Autumn is my favorite season, as I know it is for many Koreans.  We at the American Embassy were very happy to play an important role in President Obama’s visit to Korea to participate in the G20 Summit.  At the same time, I’ve been trying to get out and enjoy the beautiful autumn weather.

I had a perfect excuse to get out of the office when the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MIFAFF) contacted us about its “Rural-20” project.  The idea is to promote Korea’s rural areas to tourists in the lead-up to the G20.  While the G20 ushers in Korea’s global leadership, the Rural-20 highlights Korea’s rural past and its still-thriving cultural traditions.  When MIFAFF suggested that I lead a group of Embassy employees to explore little-visited areas of Jeollanamdo, including the remote island of Jeungdo, and the beautiful gardens of Damyang, we quickly said yes! 

An up-close look at Jeollanamdo and the areas we visited on our autumn travels

Team Embassy bikes for the Rural-20

Our biking route around Damyang took us through rural landscapes with scenes I recall from decades ago, including long stretches of road where the newly harvested rice was spread out to dry.  Here’s a biking hint:  Find roads where the farmers still dry their crops on the side of the roads.  These are roads with little traffic, perfect for biking!

We also said we wanted to do as much of the trip as possible by bicycle.  My younger brother Jeff, who was visiting Korea, is like me an enthusiastic bicyclist.  He was last in Korea for the 1988 Olympics, and he was eager to see Korea’s changes over the past twenty-two years, not only in the cities but in the countryside.  What we found was that while much has changed, the traditional customs and scenic beauty of rural Korea can still be found.

We biked from Muan to Jeungdo, crossing a newly built bridge to the island of Jeungdo.  Even with a bridge, Jeungdo is remote.  We stopped at a still-active “salt farm,” where salt is made through solar evaporation, not boiling.  We visited the excellent Salt Museum (소금박물관), and had a try at “making” salt ourselves.  We learned that Jeungdo’s salt farm was staffed by displaced people after the Korean War.   Since then Jeungdo’s population has been in gradual decline.  But modern Koreans’ interest in the health properties of “sun-dried salt” (천일염) is spurring new interest in the process of making salt, and of the special properties of the salt itself.  It got me to thinking a lot about the importance of salt in human history, whether in Asia or the West.  In fact, I downloaded on my e-reader (yes, I have one!) a best-selling book called “Salt,” by Mark Kurlansky, who reminds us that “Salt is so common, so easy to obtain, and so inexpensive that we have forgotten that from the beginning of civilization until about 100 years ago, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities in human history.”  Kurlansky quotes a 1912 essay by a Welsh psychologist named Ernest Jones, who wrote, “in all ages salt has been invested with a significance far exceeding that inherent in its natural properties... Homer calls it a divine substance, Plato describes it as especially dear to the Gods... That this should have been so in all parts of the world and in all times shows that we are dealing with a general human tendency and not with any local custom, circumstance, or notion.”  So my visit to the Jeungdo salt farm made me reflect about the universality of human experience, and I continued to read more of Kurlansky’s book, which traces human development and history in both East and West through the history of, yes, salt. 

This method of making salt through evaporation is labor-intensive.  But the salt is said to enjoy special properties.

Ladling our mixture at Soybean Story (콩 이야기), a small tofu factory in Jeungdo.  We visited the factory as part of the Rural-20 tour.  The owner Lee Do-Yoon and his wife make tofu from fresh soybeans grown on site.  The only other ingredient is boiled seawater.

One of the many things I like about long-distance biking is that it is great for thinking, and I was still thinking about salt and its special qualities when we arrived, by bicycle, at our next stop, “Soybean Story” (콩 이야기). There we made our own “sundubu” (순두부), made with nothing but fresh locally grown soybeans and boiled seawater (that great salt again), and with considerable help from our hosts.  We ate it immediately!  The combination of fresh air and exercise gave us an appetite for a gastronomic experience that topped the finest restaurant!    

I was still thinking about salt and local ingredients when we reached Gwangju in time to participate in the annual Gwangju World Kimchi Culture Festival.  I still recall my first autumn in Korea, 35 years ago, when all the girls schools closed for a week, and the entire country mobilized for “kimjang.”  Everywhere there was cabbage, by the truckful, oxcart-load, “jige”(지게)-load.  Everyone worked together to make “winter kimchi,” which had to be made in sufficient supply to last through the winter.  The kimchi was placed in the large covered earthen jars still ubiquitous in Korea (though now seemingly more for decoration), and buried in the ground near the house.

Mayor Kang Un-tae hosted us at the 17^th Gwangju World Kimchi Culture Festival (제17회 세계김치문화축제).

I recall how throughout Korea’s long winter, for every meal, the lady of the house would go into the cold courtyard and get the kimchi for the meal.  And I recall how the taste of that kimchi changed and deepened as the winter wore on, and how we treasured the kimchi even more as the number of other side dishes decreased as the winter wore on.  That is when I came to appreciate the centrality of kimchi to Korea’s diet and to its culture. 

A lot has changed in thirty-five years.  Now there are not only kimchi festivals.  There are kimchi refrigerators!  In fact, I have one at my house in Seoul, and I don’t know how I ever did without one.   We can eat kimchi anytime, anywhere, not only in Korea, but throughout the world.  But the best kimchi is still made in the autumn, during kimjang, and it is made with love and care, and with the best of local ingredients, including great salt! 

Women joined together at the Gwangju Kimchi Festival to make kimchi for the “Kimchi Love Mecenat” (김치사랑메세나), a kimchi making charity event.

This year the festival’s organizers highlighted the global popularity of kimchi, adding “world” to the event’s title.  The international theme is reflected in this photo of invited VIP guests.  Pictured here are Gwangju Mayor Kang Un-tae (center) and Festival Committee Chairperson Kim Sung-hoon (second from left) with international guests, including CODEX Alimentarius Commission Chairperson Karen Hulebak (sixth from left), German Ambassador Hans-Ulrich Seidt (first from left), Kimchi Festival Goodwill Ambassadors Ida Daussy (fourth from right) and Werner Sasse (second from right), and others.

 

[bjseh]

내이름은 심은경입니다 라는 대사님의 저서를 제가 구입후 그책에 저자서명을 받아, 중국북경에거주하는 제 외손녀에게 보내주려고 합니다 저의 소원을 들어주시면 고맙겠습니다 알려주시면 상경하겠습니다