Scratching Mosquito Bites in the Earthenware Kingdom
By
YoonOk Kim, Ph.D.
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
YoonOk Kim, Ph.D. on Smashwords
Copyright © 2011 by YoonOk Kim, Ph.D.
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Scratching Mosquito Bites in the Earthenware Kingdom
The cover of this book is Cosmos flower that I planted in my garden in Memory of My Dearest Mother. I am holding her tight!
Preservation! Preservation! Preservation! Preservation!
In my childhood, we lived in a traditional Korean house, similar to a hut-like form. Our house had three rooms and a big wooden floor in the center.
The purpose of this big wooden floor was to store grains underneath and to link all the rooms, like a living room in America. For me, the place under the big wooden floor was my playground~~~ I always used this place to hide my little body~~~ in the same spot~~~watching my family looking for me~~~searching for only baby in our house. I watched my family’s search with amusement. It was so cool to be under the big wooden floor being with bags of rice.
Yes, I was playing the game of cute little devil!
In the side yard more toward the shady backyard of my house, there was a variety of earthenware pots from small to large and from short (as short as 1/2 foot) to tall (as tall as 6 feet). This is called onggi made of lumps of clay, so we call Hangari, danji or clay pots.
The shape of earthenware pots are round, oval or cylindrical with big round mouth. In Korea’s ancient time, these were made from dark clay, neither fired very hot, nor glazed, but later more skillful methods were added. The color of earthenware pots are determined by the iron contained in the clay in addition to the way of burning the earthenware pots.
Some earthenware pots were small, measuring one or two feet; others were higher than my current height and possessed a handle to lift them. The top and inside were glazed with brown, the outside was a deep charcoal-colored brown. In order to access to the shady backyard of my house, we need to pass through the kingdom of clay pots, like a kingdom of earthenware pots. When fresh greens were not available, cabbage and other vegetables were marinated with mixed seasonings and stored in those earthenware pots. Therefore, the process of long term food preservation for the winter months was well developed in my native country.
In autumn after harvesting, we marinated cabbage and other vegetables to preserve and store them in the kingdom of earthenware pots. Also, for long term food preservation, we developed bean pastes and soy sauce made of soybeans and other grains by using a fermenting process, and stored them in the earthenware pots. The shady backyard of my house— the kingdom of the earthenware pots— consisted of bean pastes and soy sauce, a variety of pickles, and a variety of different kimchis (water kimchi, white kimchi, diced radish kimchi, cabbage kimchi, cucumber kimchi, kimchi of sesame leaves, etc).
Sometimes, the earthenware pots were buried into the ground to preserve the food during severe winter seasons. Thus, the earthenware pots were created for the purpose of food preservation and storage for natural refrigeration meaning natural preservation!