Kimchi-making Custom with Long History

 Pyongyang, November 21 (KCNA) -- In the DPRK, November is the season to prepare kimchi for winter.
In the country, there are many kimchi factories, such as Hwasong Kimchi Factory, but most of the households are busy making kimchi with lots of whole cabbages and radishes as it is the traditional food of the country.
According to historical data, the name of kimchi is said to have originated from the word "Chimchae" meaning a vegetable preserved in salty water, or the word "Kumchae" meaning precious food like gold.
Ri Kyu Bo, a famous poet in the period of Koryo (918-1392), says in his poem that pickled radishes are a good side dish in summer and kimchi is eaten during winter. Judging by this, kimchi has been used as a main side dish indispensable to the Korean people's diet since olden times.
For a long time, the Korean people have been saying that they can not eat a good meal without kimchi, so they have always been having heavy or light meals with kimchi. During this, they created kimchi-related proverbs, such as "A tree grows on water, man lives on kimchi".
Households are now busy pickling cabbages cut into halves, chopping radishes to make hot pickles of the radishes, getting kimchi jars, etc.
The neighbours sit around and put hot chopped radishes between heads of the cabbages, which show well the beautiful trait and manner of our people helping and leading one another forward.
The DPRK people's custom of making kimchi was registered as one of the world intangible cultural heritages in 2015. -0-