Can you eat kimchi without cooking it or heating it? If so do you have to eat it cooked?!

Can you eat kimchi without cooking it or heating it? If so do you have to eat it cooked?

Oh man, is this the question for me to answer, but I'll try to keep my answer brief.

First off, you can eat it either way. A lot of the time, we (Koreans) just eat it with rice and nothing else. Sometimes it's just one side dish of many. Sometimes we'll have kimchi, bulgogi, and rice all on the same spoon.

As for cooking it, you don't fry it or anything like that. It is mostly added in stews, most notably kimchi soup. There is no "right" or "wrong" way of making it, but it usually includes: some type of roast, kimchi, water, garlic, crushed red pepper, and tofu. I add daenjang to mine as well. There are infinite ways to eat kimchi. Some American friends of mine will eat it with steak. One last thing though, fresh kimchi doesn't make as good of a stew as old, sour kimchi. The pungent taste of old kimchi gives stew a more flavorful kick, whereas fresh kimchi doesn't. Also, keep in mind, kimchi doesn't go bad. In fact, it's generally stored in big clay pots for months on end before ever being used, so if you have had a jar of kimchi in your fridge for 3 years and you open it and it smells sour, throw it in a big pot of kimchi stew, but I wouldn't recommend eating it plain at that point. Plain kimchi (i.e., as a side dish by itself) is best when it's fresh (i.e., within a few months after bringing it home from the grocery store).