Temptation of Hot Pepper Paste (gochujang)
Korea Times
 `Gochujang,” or hot pepper paste, along with soy sauce and soybean are representative slow foods that can take as long as several years before they can be eaten. |
By Shim Hyun-chul
Staff Reporter
The temptation of red: not lipstick, but a well-matured “gochujang,” or sauteed hot pepper paste.
First, the deep red color strikes the eyes, and memories of its spicy taste teases the mouth to water. You try to resist, but succumb every time to that red gojchujang.
To make gochujang, rice, made with barley, is grounded and then mixed with ground fermented beans and hot peppers. Sweet rice taffy oil, water and salt is added to complete the paste, which can take months or years to ferment before people can get their hands on it.
Along with soy sauce and soybean paste, gochujang is one of the three main sauces used in Korean cooking. Different from the Western idea of hot, its taste runs from spicy hot to sweet, and Koreans add gochujang to just about every dish-gochujang bulgogi, “tteokbokki,” red-hot fish soup and “bibimbap.” Koreans religiously believe that the paste determines the palatability of any Korean cuisine.
The paste is also nutritious, with protein, fat and vitamins. It also has capsaicin, which has anti-carcinogenic and dieting effects.
Recently, the Korea Food Research Institute and the Academy of Korean Studies have come forth with documents dating back several hundred years, all the way to the Imjin Wars (1592-1598) with Japan, to refute the claim that hot peppers entered Korea via other foreign countries. Their feat has provided the platform for hot pepper paste-based Korean dishes to be recognized globally as genuine native Korean cuisine.