Okay, so now I am going to massage my cabbage.

Okay, number two, well-missaged cabbage.

Now for a large bowl for cabbage number three.

Just what I like to do on a Saturday afternoon in the fall, give some cabbage a very deep

massage.

I prefer to be the one actually getting a massage myself, but you're not alone Cynthia,

this is an autumn ritual for millions of people.

Primarily Koreans, because fall is the traditional time to make kimchi, and that's what I was

doing, and that's what this episode is about.

You're listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science

in history, I'm Nicola Twilly, and I'm Cynthia Graber, and I wasn't just making kimchi

for fun, and yes, deliciousness, I was making it for science.

What's going on in the fermentation, and where do the microbes that transform cabbage

and other veggies into kimchi come from?

These are good questions, but while we wait for your microbes to get busy and then get

sequenced, I have other kimchi questions.

Like, what's the difference between kimchi and sourcrout?

Aren't they just both fermented cabbage?

Plus, is kimchi actually Korean, and what's it doing in tacos today?

How unwended it gets so trendy, and has that changed kimchi in the process?

We've got all that, plus so many microbes that you are all going to fall down drunk.

This episode is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program for the public

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