Kimchi is one of traditional national foods enjoyed by the Korean people since olden times.

    According to the records known so far, it was called “kumchae” in the sense that it is a food which is as precious as gold. The sound of the word gradually changed into kimchi.

    The Korean people regarded as one of peculiar dietary customs to have kimchi at meal all the year round, saying that they can not taste genuine flavor of boiled rice without kimchi.

    There are two kinds of kimchi according to seasons; one is for having while keeping long in winter and another is instant.

    Making kimchi in winter is as same as storing it for 5 months from November to March of next year, so it is called as a food for half a year. In this respect, the Korean people regarded it as the important thing and directed special concerns to making kimchi. In the course of this a peculiar custom of making kimchi was established and is carrying forward until now.

    In early spring, they made watery kimchi made of sliced radish and young cabbage pickles and in summer, hot pickles of cubed cucumber and cucumber kimchi, pickles made of whole eggplant and eggplant kimchi, parsley kimchi and in autumn, young radish kimchi and whole cabbage kimchi.

    The superiority of kimchi, the precious heritage of food culture is displaying in our daily life.

    Kimchi is an excellent health and macrobiotic food. If you eat it, lactic bacterium in kimchi will be dissolved into various materials and absorb to human body. It activates immune system of human body, so that it can prevent such diseases as hypertension, diabetes and cancer and have good remedial effect in colitis and dermatitis. It also improves people’s resistant properties against various kinds of virus and diseases like bird’s flue and SAS, so the world people say that kimchi is a ‘perfect nutrient food’, a ‘special remedy for health and longevity’ and a ‘king of side dishes’.

    Now kimchi is spreading in Asia, Europe and America as a world-wide popular food.

     According to the records, kimchi was used as the exclusive food for the players in several Olympic Games held in the end of the last century and in the new century and the eighteenth World Cup Football Tournament in 2006.

    Like this, kimchi is a pride of the Korean nation as it has a peculiar flavor and enriched nutrition and long history and tradition.