What a joy to share in creating global community between Korea and Kentucky

We said yes to hosting three members of a larger group of friends and family mostly from the village of Sunchang, Korea for a few days of their global exchange visit to Kentucky. What a gift to share and receive culture, food ways, art and love to build our global community! The tour is the project of local Jeong An, founder of BaeNaChi, who hopes to grow this work of global tourism with a mission to learn, share, and heal across cultures.

One highlight of our time together in Lexington was learning how to make Gimbap from Chun Ja Yoo, master chef of Korea known as the master chef of Gimbap in Korea. What a delight for Counterculture to share some of our ferments with her and see her smile and excitement when she tasted our Sunny Kraut. She loved the flavor, dipping her spoon in a second time just to drink more of Sunny brine and noting that the color was just perfect as a match for the traditional yellow fermented radish used in Korean Gimbap. She asked to bring jars to share with the community Gimbap class hosted by Foodchain and of course we said yes!

We made our vegetarian Gimbap using some of the traditional ingredients but she encouraged us to use local ingredients. In addition to what chef Ja Yoo brought - the traditional pickled radish, pickled burdock root, and sliced carrot, we used fresh kale shared by Foodchain and jars of krauts and kimchi shared by Counterculture.

Here are some recipes you can try at home using our fermented veggies. It really was quite easy and very delicious to do at home.

Gimpap vegetarian style very close to what we made, by Serious Eats

Classic Gimbap with beef, by Maanchi