Granny Choe's Kimchi: stinky fermented food pride

Remember when Connie Choe of Granny Choe's Kimchi Company guestblogged here on Boing Boing? She blogged about a bunch of things totally unrelated to lacto-fermented Brassica genus vegetables, but that's her day job: a family-run, online stinky cabbage pickle company.

She sent me a complimentary sampler kit a few months back, and I never got around to reviewing the stuff, but here's my review: it's awesome, and I've been ordering the 3-jar sampler packs online regularly since. All of their pickle varieties are loaded with friendly bacteria, and they have a real "fermenty" bite to 'em. Hard to explain, but it tastes alive in the way that small-run beer or vinegar might. It bites you back in a spicy way.

It's vegan, it's made with simple and natural ingredients (no MSG, but stuff like peppers, ginger, dates, and pine nuts as flavor tweakers). Some of their recipes are garlickier and hotter than others. My favorite nontraditional way to eat it lately is as an ingredient in veggie burritos or quesadillas (with Daiya cheese!).

Best part about ordering the stuff online is the concerned looks I get from the postman when it's delivered. When you unbox it and open each jar for the first time, you can smell it, and it bubbles and fizzes at you. The stuff really is alive. They should stick biohazard stickers on the shipping carton!

Fermented food enthusiasts may say "But you could save a bundle by making it yourself." Perhaps, but that's not gonna happen in my house any time soon. And I like receiving my biohazards through the postal service from a friendly Korean grandma.

[PHOTO: Kimchi unboxing! iPhone snap by Xeni.]

• [tsdguy]

  Love to order some but their website doesn’t present a secure page when prompting for payment info. Maybe Xeni can give them a little techno tutorial.

  Rotten Cabbage Pop Rocks – this is EXACTLY what good kimchi is like. Woah – you should trademark this…

• [RevRalf23]

  That sounds, and LOOKS, so delicious! Awesome!

• [rzucchini]

  So, is this good to someone who has never had kimchi before (as in “kimchi is tasty”) or good relative to other kimchis out there?

• [wiinga]

  Chopped kimchi on a toasted bagel with cream cheese. Breakfast of champions.

• [dancentury]

  Fantastic! I love Kimchi — both the food and Bobby Lee’s character on Mad TV.

  One suggestion, they should have an https ordering flow for security sake.

• [Anonymous]

  It takes all of a half hour to cut-up the veggies, and six days in a crock to make KimChi.

  Can’t believe you’d order it by mail.

  As to Daiya “cheese:”
  http://soulveggie.blogs.com/my_weblog/2009/04/daiya-responds-re-vegan-cheeses-ingredients.html

• [Steaming Pile]

  I was stationed in Korea with the 2nd Infantry Division, and they’d have kimchi available in the mess hall, mainly because the Korean soldiers demand it. My fellow GIs would give me weird looks as I put a big pile of it on my plate and ate it like cole slaw. Yummy, yummy kimchi made in a big factory in Seoul and sold in 10-liter square cans. Just as God intended.

• [mn_camera]

  Kimchi is one of my favorite things.

  Thanks for this.

• [M. Allen]

  OMG, Thanks for the blog post about Granny Choe’s KimChi! I LOVE KimChi, I placed an order for 2 three packs! I haven’t had really good KimChi since a friend and his wonderful Korean Wife moved away. Sigh, I really miss great homemade Korean food…….

• [Anonymous]

  I got very excited about ordering some kimchi, but their website doesn’t use an SSL protected page when asking for my credit card info. I got much less excited at that point.

• [Sunfell]

  I adore good kimchi. There are some local Asian stores that have it- with that lovely bite- but I just might have to try this, too.

  Might have to make some, too- when my Heifer CSA basket has bok choi and radishes.

• [Mitch]

  If you eat kimchi you’re not a food pouf. It’s good stuff. I made a variant that used habanero pepper and sweet Hungarian pepper in place of the traditional Korean red pepper flakes. The habanero added a nice flavor. I’ve wanted to try something really unorthodox and make it with Indian mango pickle but I don’t know if adding the oily pickle would cause a problem.

• [Anonymous]

  personally, I think KimChi is one of those kinda gross things people eat. But wait! I also think it is pretty good. In fact, I got into a long discussion with my wife about her grandfather’s kraut crocks, and the subject of KimChi came up. I confessed to developing a taste for it before she was even born and she asked, “what does it taste like?”

  I was at a momentary loss for words after she wouldn’t accept “like kimchi” so I paused and said “well it’s, like, sparkly.” She wouldn’t accept that either, and that’s where it has been left for a couple of years now.

  Today I was able to point to the opinions of people that are not known to me using the same terminology to describe it and now she says we are ALL having flashbacks…

  It’s good and it sparkles in your mouth.

• [mujadaddy]

  H-Mart at Parker & Yale in Aurora, CO, for those so inclined/located, has it for 1.99$ per pound, made right in front of you in the store (well, next week’s product).

  FYI Frauenfelder :)

• [the_headless_rabbit]

  I’m not sure how vegan kimchi is, while I was living in Korea, I went to a kimchi making festival, and a common ingredient was shrimp paste. Tiny baby shrimps in paste form. delicious.

  I miss kimchi so much. The stuff they sell in Toronto’s Korea town just isn’t the same.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    Granny Choe’s kimchi is vegan, guys. You can make it with or without fishy ingredients, and while including fish-stuff may be part of the tradition, theirs happens to be made without. All veg.

  • [Marshall]

    A lot of kimchi has either shrimp paste or dried/powdered shrimp in it – definitely not something that’s often vegan friendly.

    I’m going to have to order me some. My favourite kimchi is daikon kimchi, and I can’t wait to try Granny Choe’s. She’s gotta get this on store shelves in LA, ASAP.

• [Anonymous]

  For those who are wary of the lack of https, I just confirmed with them that they accept phone orders. The phone# is on their website under “Contact.”

• [zyodei]

  There’s a world of difference between good kim chi and bad kim chi.

  Good kim chi kind of sparkles in your mouth and sets off little fireworks on your tongue. Bad kimchi is merely flavorful.

  That being said, kim chi is like sex and pizza. I will let you deduce why :)

  • [hijukal]

    I’m surprised no one has come back with “even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good”, yet.

  • [grimc]

    “kim chi is like sex and pizza.”

    You can get sick from it?

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    “sparkles in your mouth”

    Ah, perfect description! I wanted to say that it “tasted like rotten cabbage pop-rocks,” but that didn’t quite nail the pleasurable part of it.

• [MikeMoore]

  this stuff is fantastic and glad to see them get a little Boing Boing love!