CreatripTeam

As autumn approaches, Korea’s kimjang (collective cabbage fermenting for winter) season returns via local festivals and community events. In southern Italy a similar ritual, Passata Day, brings families together at summer’s end to peel, seed, cook and sterilize tomatoes into jars of sauce for winter. Both traditions are intensive, intergenerational efforts of food preservation — kimjang uses lactic fermentation to preserve cabbage, while passata uses heat sterilization to stop microbial activity. Each finishes with communal meals (e.g., pork and makgeolli after kimjang; pasta and wine after passata) and reinforces family bonds and shared memories. Yet both customs are declining as store-bought goods replace homemade goods, even though people still long for the “time-made” flavors and the social ties those processes preserve.