Next: about 15 to 28 Nov 2026
Kimjang
The communal making of winter kimchi, with mountains of cabbage packed with gochugaru, garlic, ginger and fish sauce.
Spices for Kimjang
Each late autumn, Korean families and neighbours gather to make enough kimchi to last through winter. Salted napa cabbage is stuffed with a paste of coarse red chilli flakes (gochugaru), garlic, ginger, fish sauce, salted shrimp and scallion, then packed in jars to ferment. Kimjang has been recognised by UNESCO as an intangible heritage tradition. Chilli arrived in Korea only in the 16th century, but it shaped the whole cuisine and gives kimchi its colour and heat.
The spices
Also part of it, and being written: Gochugaru (The sun-dried chilli flake that makes kimchi red.), Garlic (Used generously in the paste.).
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Kimjang" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.