We buy Korean kimchi nearly every time we go to the supermarket in Japan. There’s a decent range of kimchi, but most of it pretty mild. So we go for a Korean brand that at least tastes fermented, and not just vinegared, salted, and (mildly) peppered. Most Hawai‘i-made kimchi, by the way, suffers from the same baleful Japanese influence–unless you go to Korean-run markets.

An elderly doctor friend (since deceased) who was raised in Hamgyong, near the Russian border, told me that northeastern Korean kimchi is the least spicy and southwestern the most spicy, that mul kimchi was more typical of the northeast. He was educated under the Japanese, and later started a new medical career in Illinois and Indiana. He couldn’t handle hot food any better than most Japanese or most US midwesterners.

On the subject of ‘other’ kimchi’s though, I’ve noticed that in a number of oriental supermarkets in London they have some very exotic forms which I’m sure would make all that Japanese ‘kimuchi’ seem very authentic by comparison. I’ve seen, for example, Vietnamese and Taiwanese kimchi’s in jars and a Chinese version that comes in a tin. Still, they probably taste better than my last attempt at making kimchi.