Kimchi is one of the top wonders of the epicurean world!
You take any one of a number of Korean varieties of cabbage and soak it in heavy brine for at least 24 hours.
Rinse and drain the cabbage three times.
Take some kind of really stinky fish like skate and boil it in water to get a really stinky fish broth.
Add a bunch of hot Korean red pepper to it (ground up nicely), some ginger, minced garlic, some paprika and a few other obscure yet delightfully incendiary spices and some rice flour to make a paste by adding in the appropriate amount of stinky fish broth.
Take your cabbage and press out as much water as possible, and then leaf by leaf without disassembling the cabbage, cover each leaf with the nasty paste that resembles everything you imagined mustard gas to be, and let it set for about 24 hours. Cut the cabbage up (throw out the cores) and add in some other veggies like Korean radishes and scallions, and mix it all up to make sure it is all coated with the nasty spices.
Then you pack it into a stout crock (make sure the liquid covers the cabbage completely) that can handle some pressure and let the lactobacillis take over. Bury it in the ground or place it in a safe room temperature place where if it explodes it won't do too much damage or violate the Geneva Convention sections pertaining to chemical weapons.
Then you let it sit for up to five days to ferment away. At that point when you dig it up and open the crock (and presumably it doesn't explode like a fragmentary artillery shell and send you to your ancestors) and the smell is almost unbearable and your eyes are watering, it's good. If you faint dead away at the smell, it is great.
After that, you dig it up and put it in the fridge and let it ferment a little bit more, like in the order of another week or two.
This stuff is truly vile. For about 99% of people it is an acquired taste after which it is downright addictive eating. Your neighbors will hate you.
Oddly enough, the flatulence rating of properly prepared Kimchi is fairly low but has been known to cause small children and animals to spontaneously combust downwind for up to 20 miles.
Oh, and when you first eat it, you think to yourself, "gee! That's not too spicy at all". Then, after about a minute or two, the spices kick in and unless you are used to spicy foods, you will which you had never been born. When you recover from the shock, you will find that you want more. After that, it's an addiction.
If you get to the point that you can eat this stuff in quantity and actually enjoy it, you will probably be immune to bear repellent made from capsicum pepper, mustard gas and, possibly, several commonly used nerve agents.
One warning - if you have a delicate intestinal constitution, and you eat too much of it, it may add a totally new dimension to the song "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash. In which case you will be screaming, "
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