Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/100

86 slightly colored, and this is served as the drink with every meal. The seasoning for the meal is to be found in the various side dishes that are always served with the, rice. These consist of pepper sauce, pickled turnips, cabbage, and so forth. The principal one of these dishes is called kimchie, and is made of turnips and cabbage. These vegetables are grown in large quantities, and are one of the most important parts of the bill of fare. They are never boiled and used as vegetables, but only for making kimchie, without which no Korean meal is considered complete. I must tell you a little more about this kimchie before leaving the subject.

In the early fall, about the time of the first frost, the village women get busy with the kimchie-making. The cabbage and turnips are harvested and carried to the nearest stream or well, as the case may be — more often to the stream — and are thoroughly (?) washed. I have often seen a company of women at the stream washing the kimchie materials, while just above them were other women engaged in washing clothes, and it may be that some one came along just at the time for a jar of water for drinking purposes. However, this matters little, since there are no microbes in the East — or at least there seem to be none. The material having been thus washed, it is carried to the house and packed into large stone jars. Into these jars go not only the cabbage and the turnips, but many other things for the purpose of giving the right flavor. I could not begin to tell all the things that go to make up a jar of first-class kimchie, though I have