Quick 38N Gaennip Kimchi for Second Generation Seeds

A celebration of Korean heritage seeds and the work of farmer Kristyn Leach

Happy Sunday! If I’ve sent out my weekly newsletter by Sunday, I feel like I’ve squeezed myself into the week before a new one starts on Monday. That’s what I tell myself at least. I do aim to send this newsletter out earlier in the week, but that was not meant to be this time around. Last week, I wrote the first part of an introduction to bom namul, Korean spring greens, and I’m working on the second part with a recipe for jumeokbap that I mentioned in my last dispatch. But before that goes out, I wanted to share a recipe I put together for Second Generation Seeds and its founder, Kristyn Leach and talk about the foundational work that Kristyn has been doing up in Northern California.

I first came across Kristyn and Second Generation Seeds years ago, when I was still living in Hong Kong. I discovered on social media that a now-shut Korean restaurant in San Francisco called Namu Gaji was working with a Korean American farmer who was growing Korean vegetables for the restaurant. As a Korean cook, being able to cook with such fresh, carefully cultivated Korean ingredients is essential. When I was growing up, my mother grew 깻잎 gaennip (or perilla) in our backyard, and she and I would pluck stacks of the fragrant, heart-shaped leaves for our dinners. And every year, we would marvel at how far the seeds could disperse as the ever-prolific gaennip gradually took over my mother’s garden.  

As an adult, I was surprised to find that even in Los Angeles, it is almost impossible to find organic, sustainably grown Korean vegetables and herbs, especially in the variety that I want. Thank goodness for Kristyn and Second Generation Seeds. Kristyn has been meticulously researching, tracking down and trialling countless varieties of Korean heritage seeds here in California, in a heart-filled project (or multitude of projects!) centered around preservation, adaptation and most significantly, community.

Preservation – Kristyn works to preserve the biodiversity of Korean seeds, and, as a result, is preserving our culture in the diaspora. A seed bank becomes a bank of cultural memories in her work. I see this in action with the Ssi Ya Gi storytelling project in Los Angeles, which connects the stories of our elders to food and to the garden. Ssi Ya Gi has a plot at the Cultiva LA community garden in Westlake, Los Angeles, where they have been growing Korean vegetables from Kristyn’s seeds and which is tended by volunteers and Korean elders who live nearby. Last summer, Ssi Ya Gi hosted a lunch at the garden where the menu was made up of dishes from our elders’ favorite food memories. Kwang and I cooked these dishes for the group and reveled in the stories shared.

Adaptation – Surrounded by wildfires and drought, Kristyn has been breeding varieties that are drought and climate resilient so that these plants can grow here and are hardy enough to be around for future generations. 

Community – It all comes back to community. Kristyn has an unparalleled ability to create community around her important work with her enthusiasm and love for the land, the seeds and our culture. While she cheers you on in your own endeavors with all her heart, she will nerd out on the science of seeds and farming in blindingly impressive detail. I learn so much from every conversation we have ever had and every meeting with her community of farmers on which I have been lucky enough to eavesdrop. 

Kwang and I feel so lucky to be a part of Kristyn’s world and want to help her in any way we can. And so I will mention that Kristyn is on the cusp of acquiring her own land so she can have a permanent home for Second Generation Seeds, and specifically what she calls the Gohyang Seed Campus. Gohyang means hometown, where your roots are. While Kristyn has received grants and raised funds for almost all of the costs, one backer had to drop out and she now needs to fundraise very quickly another $140,000. I will leave this link here. There are, unsurprisingly, many people in Kristyn’s orbit who are rallying around her and hoping she can close this funding gap and finally have a place to continue her work. We have donated a dinner for four at baroo after it opens this summer, with wine pairing.

Whatever Kristyn needs, we are there. Kristyn asked me to represent Second Generation Seeds for an Earth Day event held by Tastemade and Pinterest on Friday. I shared a recipe for a quick gaennip kimchi with them, and I would like to share it with you all here. On Friday, for the Tastemade filming, I used leaves grown from her 38N Gaennip seeds and which were grown by Ssi Ya Gi in the Cultiva LA community garden. I have been growing from Kristyn’s seeds for the past few years in my own tiny garden, and I’m grateful to her for helping me preserve my own memories of my mother’s gaennip. My son now has harvested gaennip with me from our little garden and delights in planting seeds and watching the seedlings pop up. And so Kristyn’s love of seeds is dispersed, one gaennip seed at a time. I hope that, if you have a garden, you may find some space to plant some of Kristyn’s seeds and be able to experience the delight of making this dish with gaennip that you have grown yourself. Nothing else compares.

xx Mina

QUICK 38N GAENNIP KIMCHI

Ingredients:

• 24 perilla leaves 

• 2 green onion, finely chopped

• ¼ medium carrot (or 20g), finely minced

• 2 Tbs fish sauce 

• 2 Tbs Korean dried chili flakes (coarse grind) 

• ½ c water

• 3-4 Tbs honey

• 2 cloves garlic, finely minced

• 2 Tbs toasted sesame seeds

• 1/4c soy sauce

Method:

• Rinse the perilla leaves thoroughly. If they’ve come straight from your garden, grown from Kristyn’s seeds, they will need a thoroughly cleaning. Then let them dry in a colander or on a tea towel so they are quite dry.

• Mix all of the ingredients together (except for the perilla) in a medium bowl. Season to taste with more soy sauce, more honey or whatever suits you.

• Place a leaf (bright side up) in a shallow pasta bowl or glass tupperware container and spoon marinade over the leaf and spread the marinade over the entire leaf. Place another leaf on top and repeat the marinating process until you’ve used up all of your leaves

• Let the leaves sit for at least a few hours or the next day. The flavors need to meld, and the raw garlic especially needs to mellow out.

Notes:

1. To make this vegan, use more soy sauce instead of fish sauce. 

2. Korean chili flakes come either finely ground or coarsely ground. We use the coarse grind to make kimchi and the fine grind for stews and other cooked dishes.

3. If you have leftover marinade, eat this with rice too! Or marinade another vegetable, a meat, whatever you like.