Paocai Making Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
In the daily life of ethnic Koreans in northeast China, especially in areas where they have lived for generations such as Yanbian Prefecture in Jilin Province, pickles are an indispensable side dish at all three meals a day; this is why the area has become the main distribution region of this technique. In broad terms Korean pickles include pickled vegetables, lightly salted side dishes and soy-sauce-pickled vegetables, of which the most common is the salted dish made with cabbage as the main material. Traditional Korean pickles have a long history; the earliest historical record can be traced back to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Book of Wei. In ancient times pickles were preserved with salt or vinegar; after the chilli pepper was introduced in the mid-16th century, the pickle-making technique handed down today began to take shape. Korean pickles are a side food handed down from generation to generation by the ethnic Koreans of China; especially in areas where they have lived for generations, such as Yanbian Prefecture in Jilin Province, pickles are an indispensable side dish at all three meals a day. For ethnic Korean people, making pickles is also a winter culture.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Korean pickle-making technique is a traditional handicraft that uses vegetables such as cabbage and radish as its main raw materials and, through a series of processing and fermentation steps, makes a traditional fermented food. The Korean pickle-making technique includes such process steps as initial salting, preparing the seasoning, spreading the seasoning and cellaring to ferment; the pickles are cured with seasonings such as chilli, garlic and ginger, so that what was originally only salty or sour acquires a range of flavours, hot, salty, sweet and sour, and becomes more nutritious. The Korean pickle-making technique is chiefly used to make spicy cabbage; the winter pickle is made in early winter, but it requires a whole year of preparation. Fish sauce must be started in spring, chilli powder and garlic are prepared in early autumn, and the various vegetables take half a year to harvest; the work thus requires long preparation and is done according to the seasons. The characteristics of Korean pickling are skill in selecting materials, repeated salting and the use of aged salt, so that the pickles made are moderately salty, crisp and refreshing, bright in colour and good at keeping. With the course of history its methods of making have constantly changed.
Archival Record of Process Steps
The Korean pickle-making technique includes such process steps as initial salting, preparing the seasoning, spreading the seasoning and cellaring to ferment; the pickles are cured with seasonings such as chilli, garlic and ginger, so that what was originally only salty or sour acquires many flavours, hot, salty, sweet and sour, and becomes more nutritious.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Korean pickle technique spread as a connected belt across the areas where ethnic Koreans have long lived, with Yanji City in Yanbian Prefecture, Jilin, as its core; Korean-inhabited villages in Heilongjiang and Liaoning, in the lowlands along the Tumen and Songhua rivers, mostly follow Yanbian methods. In technique it stresses the selection of materials, repeated salting and the use of aged salt; the seasonings are not prepared at the last moment either, for fish sauce is brewed first in spring and only in early autumn are the chilli powder sun-dried and the garlic peeled. The pickles eaten over a whole year are prepared from the start of winter.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Pickling has become a skill that housewives must learn, and this is the popular base that enables the technique to be transmitted today. When one household pickles, neighbours come to help one after another: the women share out the pickling, the men tidy the cellar, and all share the results, which expresses people's sense of community belonging, keeps neighbours on good terms, and promotes family virtues and social morality; the heritage item thus has considerable social and cultural value.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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