The earliest mention of edible seaweed in Korea is recorded in the
Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms (1280s); this text, created during the
Goryeo era, documents the history of the
Three Kingdoms period of Korean history between 57 BCE and 668 CE. The book contains passages that say people of the
Silla period would use
gim for part of their
dowries. It is conjectured that the
gim of this period was harvested from rocks and driftwood rather than being
cultivated.
Gim was later mentioned numerous times in the
Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty. Throughout the record, gim is referred as 海衣, meaning sea cloth or sheet.
is wrapped with gim'' In the record, the geographical survey conducted during the regime of the
King Sejong the Great described gim as the representative product of
Chungcheong,
Gyeongsang, and
Jeolla Provinces. The record showed how
King Seonjo was urged to soothe the hardship of the country's eastern coastal people who were required to produce and submit gim as a royal offering. The record also told the story of how
King Hyojong suspended the royal submission of gim upon hearing that a single piece of gim cost 20 pieces of cotton. According to the record, people strictly had to submit gim as a royal offering by a specific size. This led many people to glue a piece of gim on a frame using saliva or other means to fit the size.
King Jeongjo, citing that such practice was bad for hygiene, firmly warned the governors of the provinces to not enforce specific offering sizes for gim.
Gim was also mentioned in non-royal literature. The sheet of gim was described in
Baekheonjip (), where the author Yi Kyŏngsŏk (; 1595–1671) wrote the poem about receiving gim as a gift from his belated acquaintance and comparing its thinness to paper. In (), the encyclopedia written by the Joseon scholar
Yi Ik who lived from 1681 to 1764, the author described that gim, reddish algae growing on the rocks of sea, was processed into a sheet. The method of seasoning seaweed with sesame oil was recorded in a cookbook in the 19th century of the Joseon dynasty,
Siuijeonseo: "...spread sesame oil mixed with red pepper powder and sesame seeds. After that, sprinkle sesame seed or pine nut powder, then dry and roast it before serving".
Cultivation Production of
gim in
Jeolla and
Gyeongsang Provinces is reported in books from 15–16th century, including
Sinjeung Dongguk Yeoji Seungnam|Revised and Augmented Survey of the Geography of Korea (1530) and
Gyeongsang-do Jiriji | Geography of Gyeongsang Province (1425). In these books,
gim is mentioned as a regional delicacy.
Gim cultivation is the oldest
aquaculture in Korea and there are several stories from
oral tradition about its origins. One version tells the story of an old lady in
Hadong,
South Gyeongsang Province who discovered a log covered in
gim floating down the
Seomjin River. This inspired her to cultivate the
gim on upright support poles made of
bamboo. developed in the 19th century by a fish harvester who was inspired by
gim that grew naturally on fish fences installed in the tidal waters of
Wando,
South Jeolla Province. Floating rafts have been used for mass production since the 1920s. == Production ==