Review: No Kimchi for Me!

I was about twenty the first time I tasted kimchi. I’d never tried Korean food before, and I’d grown up on a bland English diet of meat and vegetables cooked to within an inch of their life. Spicy food simply wasn’t something I encountered on a regular basis.

I had never even heard of kimchi when one of my international students proudly offered me a taste of his lunch, which his non-Korean homestay mother had carefully made for him with store-bought kimchi. Kimchi, he said, was “very delicious” – the students that summer had somehow picked up this phrase and loved saying it, constantly describing different foods as “very delicious” or “not very delicious”.

When I asked the boy what kimchi was, he explained that it was mostly cabbage, and “a little bit spicy”. I like cabbage, so I took a tentative bite.

I immediately regretted it.

Having never really encountered spice before, this tiny morsel of kimchi threatened to make my head explode. As I tried desperately to both breath and not insult my student, I managed to gasp out something along the lines of “very delicious!”

Fast forward a few years, and my partner and I are massive fans of Korean food, and even kimchi, albeit in small bites (I still have a wussy palate)!

My experience with kimchi is not unlike Yoomi’s, the adorable protagonist of No Kimchi for Me! Yoomi hates her Grandma’s “stinky, spicy kimchi”, and when she refuses to eat it, her brothers tease her, and call her a baby. Yoomi tries all sorts of things to make kimchi more palatable – putting it on a cookie, a slice of pizza, even on ice cream! Thankfully for Yoomi, Grandma knows just what to do, and whips up a delicious kimchi pancake that everyone agrees is very delicious!

No Kimchi for Me! is a wonderful picture book – the anthropomorphic feline siblings are enchanting, Yoomi is sweet and creative, the brief text is accessible and perfect for emerging readers, and the inclusion of Korean culture is diverse and authentic.

Food is a universal obsession – we all love delicious food, even if the foods we love differ between cultures. Readers familiar with Korean culture will be delighted to see kimchi celebrated in a picture book, while readers new to kimchi will be introduced to this deeply culturally significant dish.

Aram Kim is an absolutely wonderful illustrator – each page brims with colourful, kid-pleasing detail. Just look at that spread above! Dinosaurs and drawings and math and a globe and bookshelves and more! Young readers will love pouring over each spread, pointing out all the fun details.