My introduction to kimchi was via M*A*S*H, when Frank Burns boasts about catching some Korean peasants burying a land mine — which turns out to be a vat of kimchi. Upon excavation, Hawkeye takes his own dig at Burns, saying “You’ve struck coleslaw!”

Actually, it’s rather surprising that the usually wellinformed M*A*S*H writers should mention slaw. Fermented and aged (traditionally underground to control the temperature) for a month or more, kimchi doesn’t vaguely resemble coleslaw. Think of a nostril-bending flavor bomb made with fermented cabbage, spiked with chilies, ginger and garlic.

My next encounter with kimchi was on the end of a fork in Cocoa, Florida, where I was writing about the space shuttle’s efforts to escape Earth’s gravity. An editor who had hitchhiked across Asia served it with warm sake one night — love at first bite. I was soon fermenting my own, filling the house with a thick aroma. Another reporter and I would get up at daybreak and catch a mess of mullet, which my wife, Anne, would fry and serve with grits and kimchi. The reporter and I still say it’s the best breakfast we ever had.

Since pickling vegetables is an ideal method of extending their lifespan, kimchi making in Korea dates back to well before the Christian Era. But forget the chilies. Chili peppers, native to the Americas, didn’t make it to Korea until the 1600s.

Most of the kimchi available in America is made from Napa cabbage and scallions, sometimes with added fish sauce. Authentic Korean kimchi often contains salted shrimp or croaker — or other finny prey, including anchovies and salted cod gills.

I’ve found that kimchi tends to appeal to people who relish the strongest of flavors. A friend who obsessively made beer for a while, transitioned to kimchi, observing that he became “fascinated by the alchemy of salt turning bland vegetables into hot, sour yumminess.” Plus, he hoped it “would nurture my gut and cure what age and various vices had inflicted on me.” Like other fermented foods, kimchi’s teeming bacteria is purportedly good for your intestinal microbiome. But people eat kimchi because they love how it triggers endorphins, generally appealing to the same people who fall in love with tonguenumbing hot sauces, hopcrazy IPA’s, mind-bending mescals and peaty, smoky Isla scotch.

Making kimchi is as easy as making sauerkraut and there are a plethora of recipes on the internet. As the days grow colder, consider starting a batch, especially if you have cabbage in your garden. There’s something magical about having a batch of kimchi bubbling away in a dark room, getting a little more sour with each passing day, a little hotter and a little more redolent. Get started now and it will make a great gift under the tree — festively green and red — and mask that annoying evergreen scent.

— David Claude Bailey