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This is from the transcript of a podcast.

KIM: Gim is just like - it's in so much of my food because it's the way I would cook when I was little. I would just crush gim into everything. And I have this memory of the seaweed-slicked fingers.

Gim is a kind of seaweed. When roasted, it is crispy and easily shredded or torn into small pieces.

I think Kim means he would crush gim into small pieces and add it to every dish he made.

And an example of 'crush somebody/something + adv./prep.' is as follows.

:to push or press somebody/something into a small space

Over twenty prisoners were crushed into a small dark cell.

So I think it is not clear to express what he means like 'crush gim into everything'.

Am I wrong?

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There is no ambiguity; he certainly means it the first way, that is, to render the material into very tiny pieces and mix it into the food. No native speaker would ever think that it means "cram into" as in your "crushed into a small cell" example (in a culinary context, if that were the intended meaning, stuff would be a better word). The meaning is quite clear.

However, even though it is clear what Kim is trying to say, I would not use the term crush here. As you point out, crush has the connotation of a solid object being squeezed into a smaller volume, as in a car crusher; note that the Wiktionary definition includes "to force together into a mass." When dealing with a dried and easily-torn material like seaweed, the word crumble would fit better:

  1. (transitive) To break into crumbs.
    We crumbled some bread into the water.
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  • Thank you very much.
    – user153498
    Commented Apr 9, 2022 at 4:12
  • I often crush garlic into dishes that I am cooking. I put a clove into a garlic crusher and squeeze, and the crushed garlic squeezes out through the holes and falls into the pan.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Apr 9, 2022 at 6:05
  • "Soften the butter with a wooden spoon. Chop or crush garlic into the butter.", " I crush garlic into my salad dressings, chop garlic into salads or stir-fries or make garlic bread", "To make the aioli, crush garlic into a bowl and add egg yolk, salt and lemon juice."
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Apr 9, 2022 at 8:29
  • Gim comes in sheets and I would happily say I 'crush' it into a pan using a hand, allowing the bits to fall in the pan.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Apr 9, 2022 at 8:35
  • @Michael I will happily agree that garlic may be crushed; I disagree that "crush" is the best term for dried sheets of seaweed.
    – randomhead
    Commented Apr 9, 2022 at 13:23

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