Mu (무)

Mu is the Korean radish, Raphanus sativus, a root grown on the peninsula for many centuries and one of the pillars of the Korean pantry. It is sown twice in the year, in spring and above all in late summer for the autumn harvest that feeds the kimchi season, and the great fields of the southern provinces and Jeju supply much of the national market. The radish is carried by every household: it is salted for kimchi, simmered in soups, braised with fish and dried for winter. Its place in the kitchen rests on the farming calendar and on the household practice of laying in stores before the cold, a practice recorded in the agricultural and household texts of the Joseon period.

The Korean radish is a short, thick, pale green-shouldered root with dense, juicy, faintly peppery white flesh, firmer and more compact than the long East Asian daikon. Three forms stand in the entry. Mu proper is the large autumn root, used for kkakdugi cubes, for soups and for braising. Chonggak is the small radish sold with its leaves, slender and sharply pungent, made into whole-root ponytail kimchi, chonggak kimchi. Yeolmu is the young summer radish with its long tender stalks, mild and sweet, used for yeolmu kimchi and for light cold noodle dishes. The tops, dried as siraegi, are kept for soups and stews. Cut as cubes, half-moons, matchsticks or thick rounds, the flesh takes up salt and seasoning readily and gives back a clean sweetness when cooked.

Mu is eaten with the rich and the salty, and it is the cleansing element of the table. Raw kkakdugi stands beside seolleongtang, gomtang and other long-simmered beef soups, and its acidity and crunch cut the fat of the broth. Braised with mackerel or hairtail it takes up the oily fish and tempers it. Chonggak kimchi is eaten with plain rice and soup, and yeolmu kimchi with cold noodles. The radish is drunk with rice wine such as makgeolli at the table, where its sharpness refreshes the palate between richer dishes. The structural reason is the root's pungent isothiocyanate sharpness, which cooking turns to sweetness and which, raw or fermented, cuts through fat and salt.