There is a word in Korean — 익다 (ikda) — that means to ripen, to mature, to become fully itself through time. You say it about fruit on the vine. You say it about a person who has grown wise. And you say it about kimchi. What makes kimchi singular — what sets it apart from almost anything else in the world of fermented food — is that it earns this word without a single moment of fire. No simmering, no roasting, no heat of any kind. Time and temperature do what a flame would do elsewhere. The kimchi ripens. Not cooked. Ripened.
That distinction is not a footnote. It is, as Master Lee Ha-yeon would say, the whole point.
This past spring, the Kim'C Market Culinary Odyssey made its way to Namyangju — about an hour east of Seoul — to spend a day with one of Korea's most respected food masters. What we found there was not a cooking class. It was something closer to what Master Lee has always said kimchi is: an act of preservation, passed between people, that becomes something more than the sum of its ingredients.
Master Lee Ha-yeon, Kimchi Master No. 58
Korea's national food designation — sikmyeongin, National Food Master — has been awarded to just over a hundred people since the program began in 1994. It is not awarded for popularity or years in the field. It is awarded to someone who has demonstrated mastery of a specific Korean food tradition, typically one at risk of disappearing, through sustained research, technical precision, and cultural contribution. Each designation is tied to a single food. Master Lee Ha-yeon's is kimchi.
She is Food Master No. 58, designated in 2014 — recognized specifically for her reconstruction of a kimchi that had not existed for two centuries.
The kimchi is called haemuul ssekbakji. The original recipe appears in Gyuhap Chongseo — a household encyclopedia written in 1809 by the Joseon-era scholar Bingheogak Yi, covering everything from cooking and sewing to farming and childcare; in essence, a complete guide to running a household of the Korean upper class. Recorded there under the name eoyuk chimchae, it describes layering vegetables and seafood in alternating strata, like rice cakes stacked in a steamer. No gochugaru. No refrigeration. No shortcuts developed in the centuries since. Master Lee's reconstruction layers napa cabbage, radish, mustard greens, cucumber, and green onion with octopus, conch, and a variety of fresh seafood. Yellow corvina and hairtail jeotgal, brined overnight and diluted with water, season the whole. Over the top, she lays pear skin as a final seal — her own touch, drawn from close reading of the original text. This is the kimchi that established her reputation and earned her the designation.
Kimchi appears on every table in Korea and has found its way into grocery stores across the world. But familiarity is its own kind of obstacle — the more ubiquitous it becomes, the easier it is to mistake what's common for what's complete. Master Lee has spent her career on the other side of that line: not kimchi as a side dish, but kimchi as a living tradition with two hundred years of documented depth behind it. To bring that kimchi to a proper table, she opened Bongwoori — a Korean fine dining restaurant in Yeoksam and Euljiro, selected for Seoul's 100 Best Restaurants list in 2024 — and at the Lee Ha-yeon Kimchi Cultural Institute in Namyangju, she teaches the tradition directly. That is what the designation recognizes. That is what she does.
Why the Kim'C Market Culinary Odyssey Comes Here
Ryan Kim, Kim'C Market's founder, has spent years doing something specific: finding the best Korean food producers and telling their stories, not just selling their products. The relationship with Master Lee Ha-yeon grew out of that — meeting at events in Korea and abroad, as two people who care deeply about the same things. When that kind of shared conviction finds its counterpart, something real tends to follow. The Kim'C Market Culinary Odyssey exists because of relationships like this one.
When we arrived at the Lee Ha-yeon Kimchi Cultural Institute — earthenware fermentation jars lining the grounds, a stone mortar in the courtyard, wood-fired hearths — Master Lee came out before we reached the door. Within a minute of stepping off the van, the group was being welcomed like people who had been expected for a long time.
There was an extra set of cameras that morning. EBS and KBS — South Korea's national educational broadcaster and public broadcaster, respectively, two names every Korean knows — had sent crews to film. The subject: Americans who had traveled to Korea specifically to learn kimchi — and the master teaching them. The guests were already filming on their own, taking notes, asking questions before the session had formally begun. The seriousness of the room was already telling you something.
The four guests from the United States were not beginners. Two were chefs — one who weaves Korean influences into his cooking professionally; one who makes and sells kimchi in the States, bringing it to customers who otherwise wouldn't have access. The other two were devoted home cooks who had been sourcing Korean fermented ingredients and making kimchi long before it was easy to find either. They knew kimchi. None of them had ever met a National Food Master.
For someone who already knows kimchi, a master's class opens differently. Seeing the standard in front of you makes your own practice suddenly visible — where you cut corners on ingredients, which step you rushed, what flavor has been quietly missing. The moment the guests stopped in front of Master Lee's jeotgal lineup, the moment they went quiet while cutting vegetables — that's what was happening. They were looking at their own recipes.
Cut It, Taste It, Pack It with Your Hands
Most people who visit a kimchi institute watch a kimchi lesson. What happened here was different.
The day started with understanding the ingredients. Master Lee had laid out the jeotgal on the preparation tables — not one or two types, but many: salted shrimp in four distinct preparations, yellow corvina jeotgal, hairtail jeotgal, gizzard shad jeotgal, hairtail belly jeotgal, and more. Alongside them, kimchi fillings covered the rest of the table — garlic, ginger, and a range of vegetables and seasonings that most of the guests had never seen laid out all at once. Guests who had worked with Korean fermented ingredients for years stopped in front of this lineup. They tasted each one directly, smelled them, sent questions through Ryan. Master Lee answered each with the patience of someone who finds the subject inexhaustible. Understanding the ingredients came first.
Then hands started moving. Napa cabbage, cucumber, radish, green onion and more — each vegetable cut directly by the guests. Every cut had a reason. Cucumbers are salted whole so the aroma doesn't escape. Radish is cut to a specific thickness to preserve the crunch. The seasoning paste went around too — tasting a finished batch of baechu-so, the spiced paste that goes inside the cabbage, is how you learn what balance actually feels like, where it has slipped.
Then the kimchi was assembled. Master Lee reached in first, bare-handed, and the group fell in around her. The room got loud: talking, laughing, arms reaching past each other for the next leaf.
While all of this was happening, two cast-iron cauldrons were going over real wood fires in the courtyard — actual logs, fed by hand, the kind of cooking most Koreans haven't seen in decades. One held rice. The other held pork suyuk — meat slow-boiled until tender — simmering since before anyone arrived. One of the guests had found his way to the woodpile and was quietly helping the assistant tend the fire. Nobody had asked. It just happened that way.
As the kimchi-making wound down, everyone gathered around the stone mortar in the courtyard — nearly a hundred years old. Master Lee had gathered fresh wormwood (ssuk — a wild herb prized in Korean cooking for its earthy, slightly bitter fragrance) from the hillside above the institute that morning. Steaming glutinous rice and the wormwood went in together, and the pounding began. The weight of hot rice in a stone mortar transfers through the handle in a way that's hard to describe and easy to feel. Everyone took a turn. The mass turned green and fragrant and elastic, and injeolmi — chewy rice cakes dusted in roasted soybean powder — came out still warm. That was dessert, made by the people who were about to eat it.
Master Lee had also opened something that doesn't come out in standard sessions: the haemuul ssekbakji itself. A ceramic crock was opened. We tasted quietly for a moment, then started talking. The kimchi doesn't announce itself — it's seumseum, present but restrained, the ingredients speaking for themselves. What builds as you eat is the umami from the fermented seafood, the sweetness of the pear skin, an oceanic depth that keeps arriving. For those of us accustomed to gochugaru-forward kimchi, the absence of red pepper was disorienting at first — and then clarifying. Everyone was reaching in for another piece before they'd finished the first.
Then came mineojimchi — yellow corvina kimchi — and galchijimchi — hairtail kimchi. Master Lee's description was direct: ordinary kimchi is a vegetable dressed for dinner. Mineojimchi and galchijimchi are that same vegetable wearing a diamond ring and pearl earrings. We laughed. And then tasted. And then laughed again, because the metaphor was exactly right. What the fermented fish brings is a depth of umami that hits differently from anything in standard kimchi — layered, almost extravagant, the kind of flavor that fills the entire mouth and keeps building. Brilliant is the word that came to mind. Not subtle. Not background. Upfront and alive in a way that made everyone reach for another piece without quite meaning to.
Then she sat everyone down — a spread so generous it earned the Korean expression sangdari bureojige: "so laden the table legs might break." Geotjeori (freshly seasoned kimchi, served right away rather than fermented), haemuul ssekbakji from the crock, mineojimchi, galchijimchi, oisobaegi (cucumber kimchi) — and pork suyuk from the wood-fire cauldron, rice from the same fire, japchae (glass noodles stir-fried with vegetables and meat), kimchi-wrapped pork ribs, bulgogi, beef and seaweed soup. Her longtime student was there. The film crews were there. Everyone ate together.
Then Master Lee and her student sang. A traditional changga — a Korean folk song form — about kimchi: 김치란 무엇이더나, 우리 민족의 삶이로다, "What is kimchi? It is the life of our people." Their voices were clear and beautiful. Everyone at the table put down their chopsticks and listened. It wasn't planned. It just happened. Applause, then chopsticks again.
Time and Temperature — and What a Person Learns
Master Lee's philosophy — the one that underlies everything she does — arrived early and stayed through the day.
"Time and temperature make kimchi," she said. "I just arrange the conditions."
She means this literally. Kimchi is not cooked; it ripens. Everything that goes into it must come from nature — a vegetable, a salt, a fermented seafood, a natural spice. Anything else interrupts the fermentation. This is not a preference. It is the entire basis of what she considers real kimchi.
She spoke about what has been lost: forty or fifty years ago, the number of distinct kimchi recipes in Korea was equal to the number of Korean mothers. Regional differences, seasonal differences, family differences — all of it encoded in flavor. As lives got busier and the annual kimchi-making gave way to store-bought, much of that variety quietly narrowed. She also spoke about what hasn't been lost: kimjang, the communal kimchi-making practice that UNESCO designated an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013, is still alive in Korean households. Families still gather in November to salt and pack together, the way it has been done for centuries.
"In Korea, we have always said that kimjang is the act of preserving not just cabbage but jeong." Jeong: the bond between people who have shared time and effort and meals. It accumulates over years — closer to attachment than to emotion. What UNESCO recognized was not a recipe but a practice of togetherness that the recipe makes possible.
"Doing it yourself is the education," Master Lee said. "Not watching. Doing."
And then she sent everyone home with the kimchi they had made.
(Left to right) Rice cooked in a traditional cast-iron cauldron over a wood fire. / Everyone took a turn at the stone mortar — pounding wormwood and glutinous rice into injeolmi, the traditional Korean way. / Master Lee Ha-yeon's haemuul ssekbakji, prepared two days ahead especially for the Kim'C Market Culinary Odyssey.
What Doesn't Happen Without the Relationship
The guests that day had all made kimchi before — in American kitchens, with ingredients sourced and shipped across the Pacific. What was different here wasn't the gesture. It was everything around it: cabbage grown in Korean soil days before, jeotgal in their original variety, a master standing close enough to correct a fold, and a table where the person who made the food also sang for the people who ate it.
Back in the States, one of the guests posted a Reel — cracking open the kimchi they'd packed in Namyangju and tasting it at home. Comments came. Questions followed. The kimchi traveled, and the story traveled with it.
That doesn't happen on a standard culinary tour. It doesn't happen on a day trip booked through a website. It happens because Ryan Kim has spent years building relationships with people like Master Lee Ha-yeon — not as a supplier, not as a venue, but as someone who cares about the same things they do. The Culinary Odyssey exists because those relationships exist.
The kimchi made that April morning in Namyangju has been ripening ever since — getting somewhere new with every week that passes, tasting more like itself each time. That is not a product of a recipe. It is the product of a day, a place, a master, and a long friendship that made the day possible.
FAQ
Why does kimchi use so many different types of jeotgal?
Jeotgal — Korean fermented seafood — acts as both seasoning and fermentation catalyst in kimchi. The proteins and amino acids it contributes accelerate and deepen the lactic fermentation of the vegetables, while adding the layered umami that distinguishes well-made kimchi from commercial versions. Different regions use different jeotgal: saeu-jeot (salted shrimp) is most common nationwide, while southern regions favor jeotgal from fish like yellow corvina or hairtail. Each type brings its own register of salinity and fermented depth, and the proportions between them shape the kimchi's final flavor.
What does "seumseum" mean?
Seumseum (슴슴하다) describes seasoning that is present but restrained — not bland, not aggressive, but quietly balanced in a way that lets the natural flavors of the ingredients remain legible. It's often used for kimchi that hasn't been over-seasoned, or broth drawn with a light hand. There is no direct English equivalent, which is part of why the word travels in food conversations about Korea even outside of it.
Is mineojimchi or galchijimchi something I can make at home?
Both follow the same process as standard baechu kimchi, with one difference: the fish goes inside as a structural ingredient rather than being used solely as a jeotgal. Yellow corvina (mineo) or hairtail (galchi) is added alongside the seasoned cabbage — the fish itself, not just its fermented brine. The result is a kimchi with significantly more depth, a clean oceanic flavor, and an extraordinary umami that builds with every bite. The fish needs to be very fresh; the fermentation does the rest. Neither is commonly found in Korean restaurants outside Korea, which is part of what makes tasting them at Master Lee's table an experience in itself.
What is kimjang, and why does it matter beyond the recipe?
Kimjang is the traditional Korean practice of communal kimchi-making, carried out in late autumn before the cold sets in. UNESCO recognized kimjang culture as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2013, citing not the food itself but the social practice: the knowledge passed between generations, the collective labor, and the bonds — jeong — that the process builds and maintains. Many Korean families still gather every November for a full kimjang — salting and seasoning and packing together, the way it has been done for centuries.
How can I experience this with Kim'C Market?
The Culinary Odyssey to Korea is a private, small-group journey built on years of direct relationships with Korea's most respected food masters. The day with Master Lee Ha-yeon is one stop on a week-long journey that also includes visits to temple cuisine, traditional ceramics, a fifth-generation tea grower, and Master Ki Soon-do's fermented sauce estate. The program runs twice a year. Full details at kimcmarket.com.