Kimchi in Space

rtknox00 writes "For astronauts spending months in space, the smallest touch of home can make a big difference. So when South Korea's first astronaut Ko San boards the International Space Station this April he'll be bringing along a hefty supply of kimchi, the national dish of his native country. While bringing a cherished food on a long journey might seem like a simple act, taking kimchi into space required millions of dollars in research and years of work." Science may never get Thorramatur in orbit.

Awesome!

[jimbobborg (128330)]

Yes, it's nice that they are allowing this, however, I suspect that the smell will permeate everything in the station. Just saying.

Re:Awesome!

[antifoidulus (807088)]

Better than the smell burritos make AFTER they have been eaten.... I would hate to be aboard the first ship that stows away something from burrito king....

Re:Awesome!

[UnanimousCoward (9841)]

Dude, you know not of what you speak. Being an expert on vernacular-food-related flatulence:

f(kimchi) >> f(buritto)

Re:Awesome!

[AmaDaden (794446)]

If that's true there is some terrible news at the end of the article...

They say kimchi's short shelf life has made exporting it expensive because the need for refrigeration and rapid transport. That has added to the cost in importing countries, limiting sales.

"During our research, we found a way to slow down the fermentation of kimchi for a month so that it can be shipped around the world at less cost," Mr. Lee said. "This will help globalize kimchi."

Re:Awesome!

[stuntpope (19736)]

I recently read an article about a famous western chef who spends a lot of time in Korea, who tries to popularize Korean cuisine and use its influences in his cooking.

He was blunt about kimchi, stating that Koreans need to stop touting kimchi as their finest example of cuisine and westerners' first introduction to Korean food. Instead, they should focus on other Korean delicacies that are more likely to be agreeable to western palettes. If kimchi is the first Korean thing westerners eat, many will stop there and won't bother trying Korean food again. I know Koreans really love their kimchi, but it really is a very different taste for Americans. Nothing like a bowl of garlic and onion kimchi for breakfast, yum... Not!

Re:

[layer3switch (783864)]

That must be compared to what American culture turned Chinese delicacies into; the fast food junk that we know and eat for less than 5 buck a meal.

Popularism doesn't always mean right as Elitism doesn't always mean the best.

Re:Awesome!

[Hsoi (5318)]

Indeed. Being half-Korean myself I know the joys of kimchi but I know it's also rather a large leap for most Western palettes. What I've found works well, when I introduce folks to Korean food, is to start with good old Korean BBQ, like bulgogi [wikipedia.org] and kalbi [wikipedia.org]. That usually goes over very well and opens up people to want to explore Korean food further. I of course do have kimchi on the table, since it is unique to Korean food. But I also put a little bowl of water on the table. Many people find it easier to try kimchi if they first dip it in the water to wash it off... it's not so stout on the first try. It's how my mother introduced me to kimchi, and how I introduced my wife and my kids (as well as many friends). Works well.

Re:Awesome!

[G-funk (22712)]

Huh? I'm white as, and I love Kimchi. If Kimchi is the essence of Korean food, then it should be part of anybody's introduction to Korean food. Maybe Americans could just branch the fuck out, instead of trying to "westernise" their experience of other peoples' cultures. If you don't actually want to eat foreign food because it might be "icky" then don't. What's the point of having some dumbed down version?

Now, have a slice of vegemite on toast ya girls ;-)

Re:Awesome!

[g0bshiTe (596213)]

You aparently never have eaten Kimchi before.
I dated a half Korean girl, her mom used to make it all the time.
The stuff smells like the ass of a dead dog, tastes great, but leaves you with Montezumas revenge 10x worse than Taco Hell ever thought about doing.

Why in space?
Because in space no one can hear your scream.

I disagree

[OrangeTide (124937)]

I find that Kimchi actually improves my digestion. It's just fermented cabbage with some seasoning. It's not much different from Sauerkraut or lactic pickles. All of these fermented items have pretty pungent aroma, but a pretty big fan base. :)

Now things like natto and stinky tofu, those are way over the top. Kimchi, if thought as a typical condiment fits in with the traditions of westerns. To consume a salt and sour "side" with a meal. like pickles or olives.

I find that a little bit of kimchi on the side w

Re:Awesome!

[d3ac0n (715594)]

Well if they didn't do a good job, the next article will be about an incident on the international space station that caused all the Kimchi to get blown out the airlock.

Re:Awesome!

[Translation Error (1176675)]

Just wait until someone wants to bring his beloved durian aboard.

Well, at least...

[msauve (701917)]

it's not durian [wikipedia.org].

Re:Well, at least...

[raddan (519638)]

Funny story about that. A coworker of mine married a Vietnamese woman, and seeing as how they both love durian, they decided to have a durian wedding cake. Now, since the wedding was held in the US, most of the guests were, shall we say, unfamiliar with the fruit. The highlight of the evening was a small child who took a bite of the cake, and who burst into tears crying, "I can't make the taste go away!". My first experience with durian (in bubble tea) caused my colleagues at the table to start to complain that the restaurant must have seated them next to a trash can-- until they realized the smell was coming from my drink. Ahh, there really is nothing like durian in the West.

Millions of dollars? Years of research?

[monomania (595068)]

...there goes my haggis.

Re:

[Nimey (114278)]

More haggis for us, then.

Re:Millions of dollars? Years of research?

[aproposofwhat (1019098)]

But you can't take a haggis into space - what if yon beastie escapes and runs round and round in wee circles, because everyone knows that the legs on one side are shorter than the other, what with them living in the hills...

Coca-Cola

[pipatron (966506)]

What about Coca-Cola? No geek can go without it.

Re:Coca-Cola

[hakubi (666291)]

They tried this awhile ago. You can't have carbonated beverages in a near-weightless environment because belching would result in vomiting up your food. As a result, the Coke had to be flat. Basically, it tasted really nasty and they've not tried it since that I know of.

How to recycle flat cola...

[vorlich (972710)]

Add Jack Daniels, that way you render two drinks of questionable palate into a passable embrocation. It's off topic, I know, but hey this is slashdot and they are brands on par with Microsoft.

Re:

[MosesJones (55544)]

Coca-Cola? Hand in your geek card now.

Valid answers are the likes of Red Bull and other energy drinks that are banned in some countries because of the amount of stimulants in them. Also acceptable are amounts of coffee that are either measured in gallons or espresso and Turkish coffees.

The basic rule is that a geek drink should contain so much caffeine or other stimulants that your heart stops, thus requiring another mouthful to get it started again.

Coke? Hell even Arts Majors drink that.

Uh

[afidel (530433)]

Millions? How many scientist man years does it take at ~$300K/year to study a single food item?

Re:What country?

[TheMeuge (645043)]

Where do scientists earn $300k/year?

In the U.S., you have to be a tenured department chair, with a Howard Hughes fellowship or the likes of it... in order to make $300k/year as a scientist. I figure about 0.001% of all scientists fit that bill.

Graduate Students: $0 - $25k/year ($40-60k/year in the industry, as a technician)
Post Docs: $25k-35k/year ($40-100k/year in the industry, as a junior scientist, i.e. technician)
Fellows: $35-50k/year
Assistant/Associate professors: $50-60k/year
Full Professors w/o fellowships, etc: $60-150k/year

The vast majority of all scientists in the U.S. have trouble making ends meet... not earning $300k/year... and I am talking about the BIOMEDICAL scientists, who are the HIGHEST PAID.

mm..

[newbie56k (1245896)]

So thats where our tax money went... researching the fluid mechanics of kimchi in 0 g..

The Kimchi has gotten loose!

[the_skywise (189793)]

The spice! It's in my eyes! AUUUGHH! It burns!! The goggles... they do nothing!

Well, I guess...

[by Anonymous Coward]

in space no one can hear you fart.

Re:Well, I guess...

[catdevnull (531283)]

If I had mod points, I'd promote this to +5 funny. I laughed so hard I farted myself.

"Prepare to experience chaos"

[WindBourne (631190)]

Might actually be useful in space.

Re:

[Penguinisto (415985)]

Might actually be useful in space.

In space, it's denoted by its proper and full title: Fermentation Augmented Rectal Transport System.

(wait for it...)

/P

Re:"Prepare to experience chaos"

[Farmer Tim (530755)]

At this point I'm forced to ask where you got your nickname...

dangerous precedent

[OglinTatas (710589)]

I thought they banned "Mexican night" on the ISS because of the limited air supply, but they are letting this guy take his spicy sauerkraut? This kimchi thing sets a dangerous precedent.

Fresh Kimchi?

[PIPBoy3000 (619296)]

I see they were taking it already canned, but why not get it freshly fermented? The hard part about Kimchi is the fermentation step. Since you can't bury it in the ground as tradition requires, they've fortunately come up with a patented fermentation system [freepatentsonline.com]:

A Kimchi fermentation or cool storage apparatus comprises a chamber for either fermenting or coolly storing Kimchi, the chamber being formed of a hollow barrel with opened upper end; a cover for either entering or enclosing the chamber; a thermoelectric module for heating or cooling the chamber, the thermoelectric module being mounted on the outside of the bottom wall of the chamber; a power supplying section for supplying electric power with the thermoelectric module; a temperature sensing section for sensing the interior temperature of the chamber; and, a microprocessor for receiving the temperature signal from the temperature sensing section, for controlling the power supplying section to keep the chamber at a reference fermentation temperature for a predetermined time duration while fermenting Kimchi, and keep the chamber at a reference storage temperature while coolly storing Kimchi.

I know people complain about the high costs of our space program, but the spin-off technologies make our lives so much better.

Re:Fresh Kimchi?

[wodgy7 (850851)]

Believe it or not, those kind of high-tech kimchi refrigerators are *huge* in Korea now. They're pretty much the #1 "must have" home appliance in Korea. There's a good Wikipedia article: Kimchi fridge [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[Zordak (123132)]

I'm still waiting for the invention that they use to get the kimchi scent out of the ISS fridge.

Ehe Future

[pizzach (1011925)]

I can't wait until we see kimchi commercialized in this new form. Maybe it will be something like instant ramen noodle is to us now?

What about his fellow travelers?

[jht (5006)]

Taking kimchi up in space - man, the smell of that stuff is brutal - and in space, you can't exactly crack the windows when he starts farting now, can you? Seriously, just because you _can_ take a smelly, nasty food up in space because people of your ethnicity eat it doesn't mean you _should_ take it up. There's the "bringing home with you so you don't get so lonely" deal but there's also the "having to live in a confined space with several other people that have nothing in common with you" deal. And bringing food that has a >0 chance of really bugging your fellow astronauts isn't the greatest idea. What's next, having an Icelandic astronaut bring some håkarl up, too?

Re:What about his fellow travelers?

[jht (5006)]

It's not about _my_ being ethnocentric - it's about trying to have a lack of ethnocentric foods in space. Astronauts should be screened before sending them up to see what you can realistically send up. Cuisine for spaceflight should try and match up favorably with the tastes of all the people on board, or at least be inoffensive to all of them. Kimchi might be perfectly fine for a crew of all Koreans, but I'm sure there's plenty of foods in Korean cuisine that can give a crew member a taste of home without stinking up the joint. If the Korean crewmember hates tomatoes like you do, then foods with a strong tomato smell should be kept off the ISS, too. NO STEWED TOMATOES IN SPACE!

/Loves sushi

//Likes kimchi fine myself

///Finds most ethnic cuisines to be at least worth a try

Reminds me of the M*A*SH episode. . . .

[smooth wombat (796938)]

where the ever diligent Frank Burns saw some Koreans burying mines or bombs in a field near their base. He went out with metal detectors and a few helpers to find and remove these nefarious devices. Hawkeye and B.J. tagged along to see how things went.

Needless to say, Frank finds one of these bombs and uncovers it. As he's standing there practically gloating to Hawkeye about being right, Hawkeye promptly opens the top, to Frank's evident distress, at which point a pungent odor wafts into the air. Hawkeye then lets Frank in on what's been happening and explains these are kim-chi pots the villagers are burying.

Funny what one can learn from watching t.v.

Food. What you are used to eating

[sakdoctor (1087155)]

In my own experience, if you live in a place long enough you adapt to the food such that you feel just as weird going "back in the other direction". I remember walking around a western supermarket for the first time in years and thinking "Ok, what the hell am I supposed to eat here".

Time to adapt for me personally; 2-3 years, and 3 years tops. After that, no craving for food that you were previously used to eating. You get totally localized.

I guess my point is, instead of packaging food that is obviously unsuitable for the purpose (because it fucking stinks for one), why not train to live on food that is especially suitable for space flight.

Astronaut sounds like my wife

[tompaulco (629533)]

My wife is Korean, and she can't stand to be away from Korean food. We live in the U.S., but have a couple of Korean marts around and so she generally eats Korean food about 80% of the time at home. When we go camping, she takes Korean food. When we go on vacation, she can maybe go 4 days without, but by the 5th day, we have to find a Korean restaurant. Paris wasn't so bad, as there were a few Korean restaurants to choose from. There was only one on Kauai, though.
I used to like most kinds of Korean food, but after having so much of it for so many years, I've gotten burned out on it, and now the only things I like are the pul-go-gi and the gal-bi. Imagine the l as sounding more like a single syllable lr, and the g sounding both like a g and a k, and that should give you an idea how it sounds.

Surströmming

[wiredlogic (135348)]

Some non-cabbage based kimchi is okay but we should never let the Swedes send up Surströmming [wikipedia.org]. That stuff is like a biological weapon.

Thorramatur

[BotnetZombie (1174935)]

I wonder why no-one is talking about the wonderful thorramatur mentioned in the summary (some examples on the wiki page) [wikipedia.org]. Sour lumps of fat, ram's balls, urinated sharks, the list is lovely. Fortunately we only have to eat this once a year, with large amounts of brennivín [wikipedia.org], which is not drinkable unless consumed with the otherwise unedible food specimens spoken of before.
I guess every country has its own favourite unedible food.

Re:

[smellsofbikes (890263)]

I wish I'd read this before I spent $200 buying brennivin in Reykjavik to bring home to friends so they could sample something interesting. I now have about $195 in "thanks but I think you can finish this off" returned gifts in the liquor cabinet and *I* am sure not going to drink that stuff.
Truly lovely country, would be thrilled to live there, except y'all eat stuff my dog tries to roll in.

Re:kimchi

[Drathos (1092)]

Not always. I've had several kinds of Kimchi with no cabbage in them whatsoever.

Re:

[gnick (1211984)]

The Japanese have long called the Koreans garlic eaters as a derogatory name. (There's no love lost between the Koreans and the Japanese. Their mutual animosity goes back at least a thousand years.)

That's true. But, from what I've seen, the Japanese call most people who are not Japanese derogatory names [wikipedia.org]...

Re:kimchi

[crazyeddie740 (785275)]

Yes, and World War II was essentially a frank exchange of opinion.

Re:kimchi

[jafiwam (310805)]

Yes, if you are looking for a "Western Food" analog that would get everybody to understand quickly.

There's one HUGE difference though, kimchee is not typically cooked when it's made, whereas sauerkraut is cooked. Both are fermented I think it's the same micro-biology that does it though. And kimchee has at least garlic, usually hot spices, ginger and FISH SAUCE (fermented juice from preserved fish) in it. I use the purified form of the latter, along with usually one or two cans of drained and crushed anchovies for flavor.

The cool part is that the vitamins in the kimchee stay intact, so you get the vitamin C that was in there along with what is created during fermentation. So if you are in an agrarian society and need a supply of vitamins for the winter, kimchee works well. If you have gut problems it will overwhelm whatever bugs are ailing you, and it gets a slow moving gut running like a well-oiled shotgun if you need that.

For the uninitiated, kimchee is rather offensive stuff. But properly made home-made kimchee is a comfort food that does wonders. I go from cranky and anxious to happy and relaxed with a few mouth fulls of the stuff. I need to make another batch, am on my last jar come to think of it.

Re:kimchi

[Yokaze (70883)]

> There's one HUGE difference though, kimchee is not typically cooked when it's made, whereas sauerkraut is cooked.

Sauerkraut is not cooked, when it is made, for exactly the reasons you cited in kimchi.

Re:Great idea

[Stanislav_J (947290)]

...what kind of white-bread Twinkie-eating motherfucker you must be...

Hey -- how did you find out about both my diet and my sexual habits? See -- this is why we need protection of our personal data....

I don't think he's talking about Kimchi

[Valdrax (32670)]

Err... Read the title of his post. He's not talking about Kimchi. I'm guessing that he's talking about Thorramtur [wikipedia.org] since the word he used shared a lot of the same letters, only the first character didn't show up because it's a thorn and not a "th".

And if you'll read the Wikipedia article about it, you'll see what he's talking about. I think I just about lost my appetite for lunch after reading that. Good Lord, what people used to eat when they were poor and had to make use of the whole animal! I mean, i