In June, Jeanie Stowe sent me a question about Hal “Aku” Lewis’ morning radio show. “Back in the mid-1950s, Aku played a song called ‘The Thing,’ sung by Phil Harris. The first verse was:
“As I was walking down the beach one bright and sunny day.
“I saw a great big wooden box a-floating in the bay.
“I pulled it in and opened it up and much to my surprise,
“I discovered a ______ (boom boom boom) right before my eyes.”
“As I recall, Aku then had a contest with his listeners to guess what was in the box. I was wondering if you could find out who won the contest and what they said was in the box.”
I poked around in the archives and didn’t find much. YouTube has several videos of “The Thing,” if you search for it, but none involve Aku.
However, one of my readers, Hiroshi Kato, remembered the answer but not who won. “After playing the song for several days, Aku finally revealed what ‘The Thing’ was. He said it was Joe Kim’s Kim Chee.”
Joe Kim
The Honolulu Advertiser interviewed Joe Kim in 1952. He explained how he was the first in Hawaii to make kimchi commercially. “When I was in school, my classmates and friends never called me ‘Joe Kim.’ It was always ‘Hey, kimchi.’
“So, having been called ‘kimchi’ ever since I can remember, it was more or less natural for me to go into the kimchi business.”
With his parents’ guidance, he experimented in making kimchi after school. His first customers were the owners of small grocery stores in Kalihi, where he lived.
“At first I used to pack the kimchi in gallon jars, but in 1941 I began using 16-ounce jars. From the beginning the 16-ounce jars were popular, and I was able to distribute my kimchi throughout the territory.”
He used 3,000 pounds of cabbage a day. To that he would add salt, turnips, ginger, garlic, spices and ajinomoto. A few years later he got a machine to cut the cabbage.
Kim Chee lost to Sai Min
Joe “Kim Chee” Kim ran for the territorial House of Representatives in 1956. He lost.
He wasn’t the only one running for office, and appealing to our hearts, minds and … stomachs. Philip “Sai Min” Minn was one of Kim’s challengers in the 5th District.
The Honolulu Advertiser’s Bob Krauss reviewed the election and noted that Minn got more votes. From that he deduced that saimin was more popular in Hawaii than kimchi!
Can’t fight without kimchi?
In 1966 the Republic of Korea sent a division to fight alongside the United States in Vietnam. But they had a serious a problem: They could not supply them with kimchi, and it was affecting the soldiers’ readiness to engage in battle.
The situation was so serious that U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye asked military authorities to find a way to send kimchi from Hawaii to the Korean Tiger Division in Vietnam.
Korea had no kimchi canning facilities, Inouye pointed out. Families there made their own kimchi at home. This led Inouye to suggest that Hawaii could help, and he wrote Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, laying out the problem.
“Koreans can no more be expected to fight well without kimchi than Irishmen could be expected to go into battle without corned beef and cabbage,” a spokesman for Inouye said.
The two big producers in Hawaii, Joe Kim’s kimchi and Halm’s, said they would be happy to help.
Lawrence Kang, owner of Halm’s Enterprises, said, “We could start sending some and speed up our present production lines.”
His firm was founded by Samuel Halm in 1953. It sent kimchi to the mainland and all over the Pacific. “Koreans must have kimchi just like Americans want their meat,” Kang said. “They must have it for every meal, even breakfast.”
Three years later Korea had taken steps to ensure its troops had enough kimchi.
Kato said, “When I was in the Central Highlands of Vietnam in 1969, we looked forward to getting Korean rations (which were not part of our regular rations), because every meal contained a small amount (about half the size of a can of tuna) of kimchi.”
Grandma’s kimchi
Gere Ome Best said: “Growing up in the 1940s and ’50s, we were totally spoiled at my house, having unlimited access to Grandma’s famous kimchi.
“Till today I still cannot describe the wonders of her kimchi. Nothing measures up to it. My dad (Kalani track coach Moses Ome) was in hog heaven when eating her spicy but tasty kimchi.
“There were three ice boxes (refrigerators) in the dining area with all kinds of ‘pan chan’ (side dish) items. The grandkids and family members all had access to the goodies and devoured them freely.
“Grandma passed in 1960, and all of her wonderful Korean cooking secrets went with her. For 60 years I searched for her recipe. No such luck, until a recent Ome family get-together to learn our history.
“My cousins Rae and Mary revealed that they learned Grandma’s kimchi secrets and could only share them with direct Ome family descendants, with the proviso that the secret cannot be sold or shared to outside parties.
“My niece, Sonja, stepped up to learn, and we’ve been at heaven’s door again, having access to Grandma’s great kimchi.
“Obviously, no other kimchi will ever do. Only Grandma Ome’s kimchi will be our constant fare from now on. Yum yum yum!”
Korean restaurants
Today there are many Korean restaurants to choose from, such as Yummy Korean B-B-Q and the Kim Chee restaurants. The earliest Korean restaurant I could find in Hawaii in the newspapers was in 1922 on Keawe Street in Hilo. In 1936 one popped up at 208 N. School St. in Honolulu. Neither was named.
The Korean Garden opened in 1954 on Ala Moana Boulevard in Kakaako. Seven years later Edwin and Miriam Noh opened Arirang on Kaheka Street.
Their son Raymond Noh said, “A Korean restaurant has to make kimchi every day. The staff in the kitchen would be chopping the garlic and chili pepper, cutting and soaking the cabbage, and putting it all together every day. It’s a tedious process.
“My dad, being one who loved to find shortcuts to everything, looked for a faster way. He bought powdered garlic, dehydrated chili pepper, and he arrived at a formula that tasted identical. It was just as good and much less labor-intensive.
“Soon he was packaging the mixture, and that was the beginning of Noh Foods in 1963. The first factory was in our living room,” Noh recalled. “We had jars and barrels of ingredients all over.”
Next was teriyaki, then sweet-sour, Korean barbecue and char siu, which sells over 3 million packages a year. It’s their No. 1 seller. Noh Foods today has more than 40 different products, but it all started with kimchi.
Do you enjoy kimchi? Do you have a favorite brand or a story involving it?
Bob Sigall is the author of the five “The Companies We Keep” books. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com or sign up for his free email newsletter at RearviewMirrorInsider.com.
