Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

If you’re a fan of Ko­re­an cul­ture and cui­sine, the word ‘kim­chi’ is not un­fa­mil­iar to you. How­ev­er, for those who have nev­er heard of it, it is one of the most pop­u­lar pro­bi­ot­ic well­ness dish­es.

Kim­chi is a tra­di­tion­al Ko­re­an dish made from fer­ment­ed veg­eta­bles, most com­mon­ly na­pa cab­bage. How­ev­er, a va­ri­ety of in­gre­di­ents can be used, in­clud­ing radish­es, cu­cum­bers, green onions and even wa­ter­mel­on rind.

For cen­turies, Ko­re­ans have been mak­ing kim­chi, even des­ig­nat­ing days for com­mu­nal kim­chi-mak­ing.

Kim­chi’s ap­peal has even reached Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“I think Ko­re­an cul­ture in gen­er­al has be­come more pop­u­lar. We have Ko­re­an skin­care, but Ko­re­an food is def­i­nite­ly more pop­u­lar in Trinidad, and world­wide, for sure. I think peo­ple are a lit­tle bit more will­ing to ex­per­i­ment with dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al foods,” said St Au­gus­tine-based reg­is­tered di­etit­ian, Mweia Elias.

Elias, the founder and di­rec­tor of Em­pow­er Nu­tri­tion, shared that it is not just its cul­tur­al ap­peal, but the nu­tri­tion­al val­ue that draws peo­ple in.

She ex­plained that kim­chi is a source of fi­bre, low in calo­ries and val­ued large­ly for its pro­bi­ot­ic con­tent.

“The main ben­e­fit that peo­ple eat it for would be for di­ges­tive health be­cause of the fer­men­ta­tion process. It will con­tain pro­bi­otics or ben­e­fi­cial bac­te­ria that will help to sup­port a healthy gut mi­cro­bio­me, which re­search shows hav­ing a healthy gut mi­cro­bio­me aids in over­all di­ges­tion as well as sup­ports many bi­o­log­i­cal func­tions, such as healthy im­mune func­tion, healthy heart func­tion, healthy me­tab­o­lism,” she said.

Kim­chi is tra­di­tion­al­ly pre­pared by salt­ing na­pa cab­bage and coat­ing it with a paste made from Ko­re­an pep­per flakes, fish sauce, rice flour, gin­ger, gar­lic and fruit such as an ap­ple or pear. The mix­ture is then fer­ment­ed be­fore be­ing re­frig­er­at­ed, where it can con­tin­ue to de­vel­op flavour over time.

Ac­cord­ing to Elias, a small serv­ing is enough to en­joy its flavour and ben­e­fits.

“I’d say just about a quar­ter cup should be suf­fi­cient. It can be used as a side, kind of like how we tend to use kuchela as a kind of flavour­ful side with spice. So at the side, like with rice dish­es. You could al­so add it to sand­wich­es for a nice pop of flavour. You could add it to eggs. Eggs and cab­bage go sur­pris­ing­ly well,” she not­ed.

While kim­chi of­fers po­ten­tial di­ges­tive ben­e­fits, it is al­so rel­a­tive­ly high in sodi­um.

“Any­one with high blood pres­sure would have to be care­ful, be­cause of the high sodi­um. Any­one who can’t tol­er­ate pep­pers, maybe if spice in­creas­es acid re­flux for you, kim­chi may not be the best op­tion be­cause it tends to be spicy,” she ex­plained.

While there are some who should avoid kim­chi, Elias said the dish is a good al­ter­na­tive for those who may be lac­tose in­tol­er­ant.

“A lot of peo­ple can’t eat yo­ghurt, so this would be an al­ter­na­tive. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, there’s sauer­kraut which is sim­i­lar be­cause both of them are fer­ment­ed cab­bage, but it’s bland­er, as in it’s not spicy, where­as the kim­chi tends to be spicy. And you know, we Tri­nis like spice and flavour,” Elias stat­ed.

As Ko­re­an cui­sine con­tin­ues to find new fans in Trinidad and To­ba­go, kim­chi’s com­bi­na­tion of flavour, tra­di­tion and po­ten­tial health ben­e­fits ap­pears to be help­ing it earn a place at lo­cal ta­bles. The side dish can be found lo­cal­ly in some gourmet gro­ceries, as well as Ko­re­an restau­rants.