Grocery diaries: Korean-Canadian writer Ann Choi on fermented foods

When Ann Y.K. Choi was growing up in the 70s, kimchi was hard to find in Toronto, so Choi’s parents would spend a week making a season’s worth of the fermented vegetables. Her youth is marked by huge boxes of green napa cabbage, red gochugaru (Korean chili paste), white radishes and the sight of her parents – two proud Korean-Canadian variety store owners – chopping and prepping the vegetables for kimchi.

“For a week, everything smells like garlic and fish sauce,” she says.

As a child, Choi resented the pungent smell of kimchi – the sharp scent of garlic and the funk of fish sauce – and the way it lingered in her clothes and hair. As an adult, those same scents have become a source of inspiration for Choi’s writing.

The author of three books – Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety, Once Upon an Hour and her latest, All Things Under the Moon, published last year – Choi uses Korean food as a motif throughout her fiction.

The long way to delicious: fermentation, umami, and time as an ingredient

Her debut novel, Kay’s Lucky Coin Variety, was published in 2016 and became the first contemporary Korean novel to be published in Canada. Much of the plot was inspired by Choi’s own upbringing: her parents, who owned a convenience store in Toronto’s Trinity-Bellwoods neighbourhood; the milk, bread and peanut butter that she saw their white customers buy; and the hours her parents spent above the shop fermenting foods and preparing banchan – side dishes of seasoned vegetables, such as spinach and soybean sprouts – for their own meals.

Seeing that contrast in how other Canadians were able to quickly purchase staples such as peanut butter and canned soups while her mother toiled away above the shop fed Choi’s rejection of Korean food.

“As a young person, I always wondered, why is Korean food so hard?”

But things have changed since the days of the Choi family variety store. Now, Choi has her choice of kimchi and fermented soy beans at the many Korean grocery and convenience stores in her neighbourhood.

Korean grocery chains such as Galleria Supermarket, H Mart and PAT Supermarket have spread rapidly across Canada to meet the demands of both Korean populations and other Canadians who enjoy the taste of Korean foods.

Kimchi, in particular, has grown in popularity, with videos touting its health benefits racking up tens of thousands of views on social media as more Canadians turn to fermented foods for their potential to improve their gut microbiome and immune function (researchers are still studying the potential benefits of these foods).

When choosing a store-bought kimchi to feed her own family – her daughter and mother (her husband, who is not Korean, does not enjoy it) – she turns to H Mart or Galleria, grocery stores that make their banchan in-house, and looks for kimchi made with napa cabbage and a strong smell of garlic and fish sauce.

“It should smell pungent. That means it has sat for a while to ferment,” she says.

How I save money on groceries: I chase weekly flyers. My mom got me into them, she gets the Korean newspaper, where they advertise. I now do it online, where it’s easy to find deals that are happening by going to the grocers’ website.

How I splurge on groceries: One thing I cannot make myself are Korean rice cakes. I absolutely love them. They’re pretty easy to find at Korean grocery stores or bakeries. Luna Bakery on Yonge St. in Toronto has amazing rice cakes, but they’re expensive: Boxes of mini rice cakes are $8.99. Because rice cakes don’t have gluten, I can still indulge despite my gluten sensitivity.

The hardest shopping habit to keep up: Trying to maintain the tradition and making stuff from scratch. I live in North York, where many Korean grocery stores such as Galleria, H Mart and PAT Supermarket exist and are within seven minutes of my house. It’s hard to resist the temptation to buy premade instead of appreciating the process of making things from scratch to teach my daughter her culture.

How I’ve changed my eating habits recently: A lot of it was when my father was diagnosed with stomach cancer. It forced my family to rethink what goes into our bodies. I now eat more intentionally, rather than eating out or eating highly processed foods often, where I can’t see what ingredients they put into their food. I also started introducing more proteins and foods into my diet that I know are high in nutrients: sardines, liver meat.

Five items always in my cart:

1. Roasted seaweed – T&T – $2.19 for a pack of three: These are low-calorie snacks that taste great. 
2. Golden Curry Sauce Mix – S&B – $3.97 each: This brand makes Korean/Japanese curries that taste great. It’s easy to throw protein, potatoes and carrots into a pot and make a quick meal with a pack of this.
3. Shin Ramyun – Nongshim – $4.44 a pack: This was such a treat for us growing up, because it was something that we could make without our parents, and now it’s still a guilty pleasure for me. I try to make it healthier by topping it with eggs and green onions and serving it in a nice dish to sort of elevate it.
4. Mat Kimchi – Galleria – $19.99 for 1.8 kilograms: ​When I first learned to use chopsticks, I was about three or four, and kimchi was the first thing that I learned to pick up, so kimchi will always be a staple for me.
5. Fuji apples – 85 cents each: They’re very crisp and sweet, compared to some other apples. My mom made us eat so many apples growing up, so it also reminds me of my childhood.