History of Korean gochu, gochujang, and kimchi

Abstract

The gochu (Korean red pepper) that goes into Korean traditional fermented foods such as kimchi (fermented cabbage) and gochujang (spicy red pepper paste) should have a mild spiciness and its Scoville heat unit (the unit that measures spiciness) is <1,000. The kimchi and gochujang that are fermented only with Korean gochu can be eaten. Kimchi and gochujang cannot be prepared even with cheongyangkochu (Scoville heat unit is approximately 3,000), which is a hybrid of Korean gochu and Thai gochu. When these foods are prepared with other spicier gochu, such as Thai pepper, Southern Asian red pepper, Central American red pepper, or Mexico's aji (which is 500 times spicier than Korean gochu), they will be too spicy to consume. Biologically, Korean gochu is different from the red peppers of Central American countries (such as Mexico and Colombia), Indonesia, India, and Thailand. Therefore, the statement that the Central American red pepper came to Korea during the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 is not true. We can refer to a research paper in the magazine “Nature” that Korea's gochu arrived at the Korean peninsula millions of years ago, having been spread by birds. It states that gochu has evolved for millions of years, therefore, we can infer that Korean gochu existed as a completely different variety. In addition, gochujang and kimchi can be made using gochu only, which proves that people in Korea cultivated gochu thousands of years ago and have been eating it since then. Furthermore, many old Korean documents support the fact that Koreans have been planting and harvesting gochu for the last 1,500 years.