Take and eat them, hehe

Many Koreans find it hard to eat rice without kimchi. Foreigners often feel that spicy food comes to mind when they think of Korea. Many Koreans also believe that if someone can't handle spicy food, he isn’t genuinely Korean. We take pride in our love for spicy cuisine. So, when did Koreans start eating spicy food?

Chili peppers were introduced to Europe from South America owing to Columbus, who discovered the New World. Portuguese traders brought chili to Japan, where the Japanese initially found it so spicy that they considered it poisonous. Rumors spread, claiming that eating chili would cause hair loss or lead to miscarriages for pregnant women.😱

When the Japanese samurai invaded Korea in 1592, there was a theory that the Japanese brought chili peppers with the hope that Koreans would die of them.😠 Contrary to that expectation, Koreans fell in love with chili peppers.😋 Initially, they were seen as an expensive spice that was hard to obtain, but over time, they became more popular in Korean cuisine.

Interestingly, the traditional kimchi that Koreans ate before the introduction of chili was very different from the one we know today. It was a type of watery kimchi made from salted napa cabbage, which had only a sour taste and no spiciness. Before chili peppers, Koreans got their spice from Sichuan pepper called "Sancho." Sancho grows naturally, while chili peppers can be cultivated, allowing for larger production and broader availability in Korean households.

The red chili peppers we know today made their way into kimchi around the late 19th century. Koreans are known for their love of spicy food, and they often enjoy raw chili peppers dipped in gochujang (red chili paste).🤣 The Korean “Cheongyang” chili pepper, famous for its heat, measures around 4,000 to 12,000 on the Scoville scale, which is relatively mild compared to some of the hottest peppers in the world, like the Carolina Reaper (1.57 million to 2.2 million) or the Bhut Jolokia (855,000 to 1,075,000).

I remember a situation from my childhood in the early 1980s when a natural disaster caused a significant shortage of domestic chili peppers. That winter, we couldn’t make kimchi because there weren’t enough peppers. The government even had to import peppers from Mexico quickly. Still, the Mexican chili was so spicy that many families couldn’t eat the kimchi we made and ended up throwing it away. We learned then that there are peppers even hotter than those in Korea!🤣

Nowadays, living in a stressful world, Koreans are searching for bolder flavors, leading to even spicier dishes. Global favorites like “Shin Ramyeon” and “Buldak Bokkeumyeon” have become famous through social media. I use Shin Ramyeon as a benchmark to decide if a foreign visitor can handle common spicy Korean dishes. If you can enjoy Shin Ramyeon, I’m confident you can handle any spicy dish in Korea. And if you find Shin Ramyeon too spicy, don't worry—you can always try the watery kimchi that our ancestors ate in the 15th century!😅✔️