Whether we’re stuffing it into toasties, topping our burgers with it or loading it onto chips there’s no denying that Kimchi has become a familiar feature on menus across Glasgow.
But for Eddie Kim, the founder of Gomo Kimchi, this traditional Korean dish is much more than a foodie fad.
Living and trading in the city’s Southside, Eddie moved to Glasgow two years ago after meeting his Clarkston-born partner Maggie on a teaching job.
It’s a long way from his childhood home in Seattle, and further still from Seoul in South Korea, where his parent's generation emigrated from decades ago, but a special jar of spicy pickled veg has kept family their connection strong.
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Eddie said: “The whole inspiration for Gomo Kimchi came when I first moved to Glasgow and found that when I missed my family, I would start to crave their homemade recipe.
“Food is such a big part of our history.
"It started with my parent’s generation arriving in the US as immigrants and now it feels like I’m carrying on that next part of the story by moving to Glasgow.
“I asked myself what am I bringing with me? What traditions do I want to preserve so that I can share them with my friends and family?
“On top of that, as strange as it sounds, making my kimchi has actually helped me to feel more connected to people in Glasgow because it’s a way of sharing a little piece of where I came from with the those I care about here.
“Or even the ones that I don’t know yet.”
Having decided to share the family recipe with his new neighbourhood, Eddie and Maggie began trading at the Park Lane and Cooperage markets in the summer of 2021 and have enjoyed a warm reception so far.
Even though Southsiders can’t get enough of his handmade preserves, Eddie still regularly checks in with his family at home for their seal of approval.
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He said: “I do send pictures to my family and keep them up to date.
“My aunt will often call to see how I’m getting on because she’s really the matriarch of our whole family.
“She taught us all how to cook and so I named our Kimchi after her.
“It’s not an exact remake of her recipe and that used to worry me at first, but now I think that it lends itself well to the story.
“Just like when she moved to the US and had to make do with the ingredients that were available to her there, I’m doing the same in Scotland now."
From K-Pop bands to the hit Netflix thriller Squid Game, Korean culture is having a moment in vogue that clearly extends into our current food trends.
But, for anyone still unsure of exactly what Kimchi is, we asked the master himself for a quick guide to the tangy, pickled dish.
Eddie said: “At its simplest level Kimchi is just fermented cabbage
“The core steps in making a batch are pretty basic, but it’s all those little stages in between that take up time.
“You brine your cabbage in saltwater for four to eight hours and then make the sauce which will preserve it using a bunch of different aromatics like garlic, ginger and onion.
“One of the main questions I get asked is how you use it.
“In Korea, it’s traditionally a side dish, but it can be used for pancakes, stews or fried rice. All manner of things.”
It’s been an impressive start for the Gomo Kimchi team and it’s heartwarming to see that Eddie’s family legacy has found a new chapter in our city.
When talk turned to the future of his small business he said: “Right now we’re enjoying our time as a market stall, there’s a great atmosphere for that in Glasgow.
“We would love to have a shopfront one day where we could serve food and test different recipes but, we’re just taking our time and seeing where this path leads us
“For now, it’s really exciting for us to see people who might never have heard of it before trying a taste of Kimchi.”
For more information on Gomo Kimchi click here.
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