이 포스팅은 쿠팡 파트너스 활동의 일환으로, 이에 따른 일정액의 수수료를 제공받습니다.
The Korean radishes arrived from Victorville in November, and the kimchi changed everything again.
The box was heavier than the tomato box — twelve radishes, each one the size of a fist, the white-and-green skin carrying the specific, cold-weather density of a root vegetable that had grown through October and into November, the radish thickening underground while the prison garden above went dormant. The radishes had been grown by Marcus — Marcus Williams, forty-one years old, armed robbery, nineteen years remaining, the man who had watched a kimchi video on the prison library’s computer and who had said to Aldridge: “If the cook can make Korean soup with prison tomatoes, the garden can grow Korean radishes in prison soil.”
The radishes had grown. The soil had answered.
Marcus’s letter was in the box. The letter was — the letter was not like Aldridge’s letters. Aldridge wrote with the reformed colonel’s careful prose. Marcus wrote the way Marcus talked, which was the way a man from Watts talked, which was direct and musical and carried the specific rhythm of a person who had grown up hearing English spoken as a percussive instrument.
Jake,
These radishes are mine. Grew them myself. Colonel showed me how to plant but I did the watering and the waiting. Eighteen weeks. Eighteen weeks I been going out to the garden every morning before count and checking on these radishes and they didn’t do nothing for twelve weeks. Twelve weeks of nothing. Dirt looking at me like I’m stupid. Other guys saying Marcus you’re talking to vegetables. I said yeah I’m talking to vegetables because the vegetables are the only thing in here that listens.
Week thirteen the first leaf came up and I cried. I’m not ashamed of that. I cried because a leaf came out of dirt that I put a seed into and that means something happened that I made happen. Not a robbery. Not a crime. Not a thing that takes. A thing that gives. The leaf gave itself to me because I showed up every morning and poured water on dirt.
I want to make kimchi. I watched the video nine times. The Korean lady on YouTube says you salt the radish and you wait. Then you add the gochugaru and the garlic and the ginger and the fish sauce and you wait again. Everything is waiting. Everything in this garden is waiting. I been waiting nineteen years already. I can wait for kimchi.
But I don’t have gochugaru. The commissary doesn’t sell gochugaru. The commissary sells Tabasco and ketchup and that’s it. Can you send me gochugaru? And fish sauce? I’ll pay you back when I’m out. Nineteen years but who’s counting.
Marcus
Jake read the letter at the kitchen counter at 7:14 AM, after the morning jjigae, after the five-note chord, after the standing. He read it twice. He set it on the counter next to the radishes.
He looked at Misuk.
“엄마. 김치 만드는 법 좀 적어줘.”
Mom. Write down how to make kimchi.
Misuk looked at the radishes. She picked one up. She turned it in her hands — the assessment, the weight, the firmness. The radish was — the radish was good. Not market-good, not the uniform perfection of a commercial Korean radish from H Mart. Prison-good. The good of a thing that had been grown in limited soil with limited water with limited sun and that had produced — despite the limitations — a radish. A real radish. A radish that could become kimchi.
“누가 만들어?” Who’s making it?
“Marcus. In prison. He grew these. He wants to make kimchi but he doesn’t have gochugaru.”
Misuk set the radish down. She looked at Jake. The look that communicated — the look was not the look of a mother being asked to write a recipe. The look was the look of a woman who understood what was being asked. A man in prison had grown Korean radishes and wanted to make Korean kimchi and the man was not Korean and the man was in prison and the man had watched a YouTube video nine times and the man had written a letter asking for gochugaru.
“적어줄게,” she said. I’ll write it down.
She did not write it down immediately. She went to the refrigerator. She opened it. She took out the kimchi container — the container that held the current batch, the batch that was three weeks into fermentation, the batch that was at the stage where the sourness was developing and the bubbles were forming and the kimchi was becoming — kimchi. Becoming itself. The transformation that required time and salt and bacteria and the specific, anaerobic patience of a vegetable turning into something more than a vegetable.
She opened the container. The smell — the kimchi smell, the smell that was Korea, that was every Korean kitchen, that was the smell that Jake had grown up with and that Sua had grown up with and that every Korean person on the planet recognized as the smell of home. The smell of fermentation. The smell of waiting.
She closed the container.
She sat at the table. She took out a piece of paper — not the lined paper from the office supply drawer, but the stationery. The good paper. The paper that Misuk used for important letters. She picked up a pen.
She wrote.
Not a recipe. Misuk did not write recipes. Misuk had never written a recipe in her life. Misuk cooked by hand, by feel, by the accumulated knowledge of forty years of standing at stoves and holding vegetables and knowing — without measuring — how much salt was enough and how long the waiting was and when the kimchi was ready.
She wrote a letter.
Marcus 씨에게,
나는 Jake의 엄마 정미숙입니다. 네가 무를 길렀다고 들었습니다. 잘했습니다.
She stopped. She looked at Jake.
“영어로 쓸까 한국어로 쓸까?” Korean or English?
“English. He doesn’t read Korean.”
She started over. In English. Misuk’s English — the English of a woman who had been writing grocery lists and parent-teacher notes in English for twenty-five years. Not perfect English. The English that was — her English. The English that carried her Korean in its sentence structure and her mother’s voice in its tone.
Dear Marcus,
I am Jake mother. My name is Misuk. I hear you grow radish in prison. Good job. Radish is hard to grow. You do good.
You want make kimchi. I teach you. Not recipe. Kimchi is not recipe. Kimchi is — kimchi is relationship. Between you and radish. Between salt and time. Between your hands and the jar.
Step 1. Wash your hands. Very important. Clean hands. The radish need to know your hands. Dirty hands, radish get confused.
Step 2. Cut radish. Small cube. Like dice. Not too small. Radish need room to breathe.
Step 3. Salt. Use a lot of salt. More than you think. The salt is the beginning. The salt opens the radish. The radish cries — the water comes out. Let the radish cry. Two hours. Don’t touch. Let the radish cry.
Step 4. Rinse the salt. Cold water. Three times. The crying is done. Now the radish is ready.
Step 5. Gochugaru. I send you gochugaru in the box. Also fish sauce. Also garlic powder because fresh garlic is hard in prison. Mix the gochugaru and fish sauce and garlic and little bit sugar. This is the paste. The paste is the flavor. The paste is — the paste is what you are saying to the radish. You are saying: I make you into something new. Something better. Something that lasts.
Step 6. Mix the radish and the paste. Use your hands. Not spoon. Hands. Your hands need to touch the radish and the paste together. Your hands are — your hands are the bridge. Between the radish and the flavor. Between the growing and the becoming.
Step 7. Put in jar. Push down. No air. The kimchi need dark and quiet. Like seed in soil. The kimchi is growing underground now. Growing in the jar.
Step 8. Wait. Three days at room temperature. Then cold. If you have refrigerator, put there. If no refrigerator — ask the kitchen. Maybe they let you use.
Step 9. After one week, taste. The kimchi will be young. Crunchy. Fresh. Good but not finished. After two weeks, the kimchi is — the kimchi is starting to know itself. After one month, the kimchi is — the kimchi is complete. The kimchi has become what the radish was always going to become.
Step 10. Eat. Share. Give to the people who are hungry. The kimchi is not for keeping. The kimchi is for eating. The radish grew so the kimchi could be eaten. The growing was the question. The eating is the answer.
Marcus. The YouTube lady is right. But the YouTube cannot teach you the most important thing. The most important thing is: your hands. Your hands grew the radish. Your hands will make the kimchi. Your hands are — your hands are the reason the kimchi will be good. Not the recipe. Not the gochugaru. Not the fish sauce. Your hands. Because your hands showed up every morning for eighteen weeks and poured water on dirt and waited.
That is enough. That is always enough.
밥 먹었어?
Have you eaten?
Misuk
Jake mother
She set the pen down. She folded the letter. She put it in an envelope.
“고추가루 보내야지,” she said. We need to send gochugaru.
She went to the pantry. The pantry — the Glendale pantry, the pantry that held the Korean ingredients that Misuk had been accumulating for twenty-five years. The gochugaru was in a large container — the two-pound bag from H Mart, the Korean chili flakes that were the foundation of half of Korean cooking. She measured out — by hand, not by cup — a portion. The portion that was — enough. Enough for one batch of kkakdugi. Enough for a man in prison to make his first kimchi.
She put the gochugaru in a ziplock bag. She put fish sauce in a small bottle — the travel-size bottle that she had saved from a hotel stay three years ago. She put garlic powder in another ziplock. She put sugar in another.
She put all of it in a box. She put the letter on top. She put the twelve radishes beside the letter — not all twelve, six. She kept six.
“여섯은 우리 거,” she said. Six are ours.
“Why six?”
“마커스가 키웠으니까 반은 마커스 거야. 반은 우리가 깍두기 만들어.”
Marcus grew them, so half are Marcus’s. We make kkakdugi with our half.
She looked at Jake.
“같이 만들자. 오늘.”
Let’s make it together. Today.
They made kkakdugi that afternoon. The radish kimchi — the cubed radish kimchi, the kimchi that Misuk’s letter had described to Marcus.
The kitchen at 2:00 PM. Not the 5:47 kitchen, not the morning kitchen, not the jjigae-and-rice kitchen. The afternoon kitchen. The kimchi kitchen. A different practice at a different hour with different hands doing different work.
Misuk cut the radishes. Six radishes, cubed — the cubes that she had described to Marcus as “like dice, not too small, radish need room to breathe.” The cubes were — Misuk’s cubes were even. Perfect. Forty years of cutting.
Rosa cut beside her. Rosa’s cubes were — Rosa’s cubes were the baker’s cubes. Less even. The hands that had been cutting green onions for forty-three days now cutting radishes, the new vegetable requiring a new negotiation between the hand and the knife, the knife and the vegetable, the vegetable and the cook.
Jeonghee watched. The red pen in her hand. Recording — not grading. Recording the kimchi the way she had recorded the rice. The document would be titled: “Kkakdugi: On the Transformation of a Root into a Culture.”
Sua salted. The salting — the step that Misuk had described as “the radish cries.” Sua poured the salt — coarse Korean salt, the salt that was different from table salt, the salt that was the size of small crystals and that dissolved slowly and that drew the water from the radish gradually, patiently, the way the sun drew the water from the ocean. The radishes sat in the salt. The water began to emerge — the clear, slightly sweet water that the radish released when the salt asked it to open.
“무가 운다,” Sua said, looking at the water. The radish is crying.
“울어야 돼,” Misuk said. It has to cry. “울어야 김치가 되지.”
It has to cry to become kimchi.
Two hours. The radish crying. The kitchen holding the crying — the specific, quiet, salt-and-vegetable patience of a process that could not be rushed. The crying was the transformation’s beginning. The crying was the radish releasing what it did not need — the excess water, the raw crunch — so that it could accept what it did need — the gochugaru, the fish sauce, the garlic, the time.
After two hours, Misuk rinsed. Three times. Cold water. The rinsing was — the rinsing was the kindness after the crying. The cold water saying to the radish: the hard part is done. Now the good part begins.
She mixed the paste. Gochugaru — the red flakes, the color of the paste, the heat that was not angry heat but Korean heat, the heat that warmed from inside. Fish sauce — the depth, the umami, the ocean’s contribution. Garlic — the sharpness that would mellow. Sugar — the sweetness that balanced the salt. She mixed with her hands — the bare hands in the red paste, the hands turning red, the hands becoming the bridge between the radish and the flavor.
“손으로 해야 돼,” she said to Rosa, who was reaching for a spoon. You have to use your hands.
Rosa put down the spoon. She put her hands in the paste. The baker’s hands — the hands that had been in dough for twenty years, the hands that knew the feeling of food between the fingers. But dough was not gochugaru. Dough was cool and elastic. Gochugaru was warm and gritty and it stained the hands red and the red did not wash off for two days.
“이게 김치야,” Misuk said, watching Rosa’s hands in the paste. This is kimchi. “손으로 만드는 거야. 손이 맛이야.”
You make it with your hands. The hands are the flavor.
They mixed the radish and the paste. The cubes turning red — the white radish becoming the red kkakdugi, the transformation visible, immediate, the color of the gochugaru entering the radish the way the doenjang entered the water. The mixing was — the mixing was the conversation. The hands saying to the radish: you are changing now. You were a root. You are becoming a tradition.
They packed the jar. Pushing down — the air out, the kimchi in. The jar filling with the red cubes, the paste between them, the liquid from the salting and the mixing settling at the bottom. The jar was — the jar was the world. The small, sealed, anaerobic world where the radish would become kimchi. Where the bacteria would do their work. Where the waiting would begin.
Misuk sealed the jar. She set it on the counter. She looked at it.
“삼일,” she said. Three days.
“And then?”
“삼일 후에 냉장고. 일주일 후에 맛보고. 한 달 후에 — 한 달 후에 김치야.”
After three days, refrigerator. After one week, taste. After one month — after one month, it’s kimchi.
She looked at the six remaining radishes in the box — the six that were going to Victorville. The six that Marcus would cut and salt and paste and pack and wait.
“마커스도 삼일 기다려야 돼,” she said. Marcus also has to wait three days.
“He’s been waiting nineteen years.”
“그래도 삼일은 기다려야 돼. 김치는 사람 사정 안 봐. 김치는 김치 시간대로 해.”
Even so, he has to wait three days. Kimchi doesn’t care about people’s situations. Kimchi keeps its own time.
Kimchi keeps its own time.
The sentence — the sentence was the sentence. The sentence that contained the entire philosophy of the kitchen. The food does not care about the cook’s schedule. The food does not care about the cook’s impatience. The food keeps its own time. The radish cries when the radish cries. The kimchi ferments when the kimchi ferments. The rice is known when the rice is known. The Question is answered when the Question is answered.
The cook’s job is not to hurry the food. The cook’s job is to wait.
Jake mailed the box to Victorville the next morning. Priority Mail — the $15.95 box, the three forms, the four-to-seven business days. The box contained: six radishes, gochugaru, fish sauce, garlic powder, sugar, and Misuk’s letter.
The letter that was not a recipe.
The letter that was — a hand extended through a mailbox, across four hundred miles of California highway, through a prison gate and a mail officer and a cell block, to a man who had grown radishes in prison soil and who wanted to make kimchi because a bowl of doenjang-jjigae had taught him that food was a question and growing was a question and waiting was a question and the answer — the answer was always the same.
밥 먹었어?
네. 먹었어요. 김치도 만들었어요.
Yes. I’ve eaten. I also made kimchi.
One radish at a time.
One jar at a time.
One question at a time.
Always.