No Kimchi For Me! by Aram Kim is about a little girl determined to like kimchi. I chose this book review because it included a recipe for Korean pancake.
I’m not sure why a recipe mattered to me because I don’t like to cook. For the sake of this review, I tried the recipe anyway.
The experience further confirmed I can’t cook. Fortunately for me, there is much more to the book than the recipe. Read on for this picture book’s themes!
No Kimchi for Me! Summary
Yoonmi generally loves her grandma’s cooking, but not kimchi. Kimchi is stinky and spicy! Her older brothers tease Yoonmi saying kimchi is for big kids and NOT babies.
Yoonmi is determined to like kimchi to prove she is not a baby. Yoonmi tries all kinds of wacky food combinations, adding kimchi to some of her favorite foods. It doesn’t work.
Grandma seeing Yoonmi’s frustration comes up with a plan. Together, they get busy in the kitchen to make KIMCHI PANCAKE! Grandma gathers everyone to eat, announcing the kimchi pancake is for their Big Girl.
The kimchi pancake smells delicious, but Yoonmi is still cautious. With a piece on her fork, Yoonmi puts it to her mouth and gulps! Do you think she ended up liking it?
Why Read It
This picture book triggered a lot of memories and stories from my upbringing. No Kimchi for Me! by Aram Kim is book about Korean food, kimchi with fun illustrations.
1. Inspired to Cook (Or Just Eat) Korean Food
Korean food is delicious. People often ask me for recipes because I’m Korean. I do not know how to cook any Korean food. However, my lack of skill does not take away from me LOVING to eat it.
Reading this book made my mouth water. One of my favorite foods is pajun or Korean pancake. The best is homemade pajun when it’s warm and crispy straight off the pan. Reading Yoonmi and her grandmother cooking, I could almost hear the sizzle of the pan.
I was attracted to this book because of the recipe. I thought if I could cook pajun at home, I could eat it more, and it’d taste better. The recipe is straightforward and a fun project, just as Yoonmi did with her grandmother.
Another popular picture book with a Korean recipe is Bee-bim Bop! By Linda Sue Park. People often recommend this book to review, which I could, but I’m not as motivated with bee-bim bop as I am with pajun. Pajun is fried. Need I say more?
2. “Learn” to Like Kimchi
It seems strange Yoomi is teased for being a baby simply for not liking food. Adults can dislike foods, too.
When I was a little girl, I didn’t like kimchi. My aunts would say to my mom in Korean, “She hasn’t learned to eat kimchi yet.” I used to think it was a funny phrase. How does a person doesn’t learn to like a taste?
Now I understand the phrase to mean kids need to develop the palette to tolerate the strong kimchi flavors. I think the phrase exists because Koreans can’t conceptualize a world where someone might dislike kimchi. It’s such an integral part of Korean food. So instead, Koreans say eating kimchi hasn’t been learned yet.
I LOVE kimchi now. I guess I did learn. Kimchi was so commonplace; I eventually got used to the taste. It’s my staple food, and I eat it every day.
Eating kimchi with non-Koreans used to be embarrassing because of the stink from the fermentation. Lucky for us kimchi lovers, we no longer need to go in hiding. Kimchi has been popularized to the mainstream. My local Alamo Drafthouse movie theater serves kimchi-flavored popcorn! It’s yummy!
No Kimchi for Me! will teach you that if you don’t like kimchi now, don’t worry. It’s only a matter of time.
3. Animals Illustrations Add to the Fun
In an interview, Aram Kim shares she drew the characters as cats rather than Koreans, so readers who didn’t know Korean food could still relate to the story. The interview included sketches of an earlier version of the story in which Yoonmi is a little Korean girl.
Though the earlier drafts are beautiful, the animals do make the story more fun. Yoonmi gets emotional, which could be more intense portrayed by a little girl. The animals make the story more light-hearted.
As Aram Kim intended, the cats highlight the food in a fun and relatable way. For example, seeing a little cat eat kimchi (remember, this is fermented cabbage) on a chocolate chip cookie is a hilarious way for the reader to understand Yoonmi is trying to cover the kimchi taste with a favorite sweet.
Related Titles
Thank you for reading my book review! No Kimchi for Me! is part of the Book List “About Korean-American Girls.” Check my other book reviews:
How to Read No Kimchi for Me!
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