An art of patience and endless questions

The fame of “K-food” was not created in a day.

Korean delicacies, an crucial component of the country’s delicate electrical power along with K-pop and K-dramas that have a reasonably small record, dates back again centuries, with written documents of it heading back to the 3 Kingdoms interval (57 BC–AD 668).

In metropolitan cities, fantastic dining eating places that serve ornate modern Korean cuisines and smaller eateries with chunk-sized Korean treats are uncomplicated to obtain. Even so, locations that serve common food in manners and type that Korean ancestors applied to appreciate are hard to obtain.

The good thing is, there are those people who are fully commited to finding out, recording and passing down the traditions of Korean cuisine. 1 this kind of particular person is Web optimization Myeong-whan, a meals researcher and CEO of Mijeoggamgag, a food stuff consulting and cooking class heart. 

“My work is different from that of typical cooks or food scientists. I advise and instruct cafe house owners, chefs, apprentices and novices who look for the original and conventional Korean foodstuff,” said Search engine optimisation on a new afternoon at Mijeoggamgag in Yeonhui-dong, northern Seoul, in the course of an interview with The Korea Herald.

For about 20 several years, Website positioning has been training and advising major business owners, restaurateurs and men and women who simply wish to prepare dinner Korean foodstuff in the classic way.

“When I was young, my father usually took a spoonful of handmade soy sauce just before starting up his meal. The proper sum of saltiness stimulated his appetite and helped digestion,” he claimed.

Born in Jinju and lifted in Tongyeong, each in South Gyeongsang Province, Website positioning explained what appeared to be an every day follow at his family’s eating desk held the wisdom of the elders that he only understood afterwards when learning Korean foodstuff.

Web optimization commenced performing at a huge Korean restaurant in Jinju in the late 1990s. Every time Search engine marketing, an apprentice prepare dinner, tried to obtain out and history the recipes, the cooks would yell at him, maintaining the awareness and know-how to on their own.

“They instructed me that the kitchen is a place to perform, not to learn. But I was certain that there had been numerous newbies who wished to see and discover the correct recipes, stage by action. Soon after work, I started digging into old Korean culinary archives and recipe publications,” he explained.

Website positioning would vacation much to get his fingers on aged publications on common delicacies. Amid them are rewritten variations of those to start with recorded in the 1670s.

Seo’s cooking lessons center about 3 themes — fermented foods, seasonal food items and tteok.

“Fermented food items and sauces, this sort of as kimchi, jeotgal, ganjang and doenjang, are the principal sources that give special flavors to Korean foods. But some Michelin-starred Korean places to eat right now do not shell out consideration to building correct fermented sauces, which is tranquil ironic,” he stated.

When training cooking courses, Web optimization emphasizes the relevance of time and tolerance involved in the procedure of building fermented food items, which he calls the to start with and the final stage of a “decent Korean dish.” 

As for seasonal foods, Website positioning talked about that his cooking lessons for the following yr will focus on several namul, followed by this year’s aim on jang.

Our ancestors did not try to eat namul uncooked, because of to the poisonous factors that keep on being when not rinsed or heated thoroughly, Web optimization said. Cooking namul effectively so as to not problems the freshness of the components and its dietary price is a tough skill to learn, he extra.

Search engine marketing retains six courses, every single with 5 students, a yr at Mijeoggamgag and finds that foreigners who be part of the lessons have a knack for comprehension seasonal foodstuff and elements.

“When it will come to namul, it’s not a make a difference of getting prior awareness about Korean foodstuff. It is essential to have keen senses to smell the scent and style the texture with no any prejudice,” Website positioning reported. 

Tteok holds a distinctive this means for Search engine optimization. As a kid, he did not like glutinous rice cakes. “I hated the sticky texture as a child, and was not a enthusiast of sweets both,” he mentioned. But researching Korean traditional foodstuff, he realized that in wealthy homes, tteok was aspect of one’s existence from the working day of birth till loss of life. 

“I preferred to make tteok that I could enjoy, people that are uncomplicated to swallow, and fewer sweet,” he mentioned. He also learned that regular tteok was intended to be a lot less chewy and alternatively nutty and humble on the palate. 

“I fully grasp that contemporary tteok cafes currently are generating them as sweets, at times served with ice product toppings to target the young technology. But I also hope that regular tteok bakeries can coexist,” he mentioned.

When asked for his definition of common Korean food, Seo’s face lit up.

“I research just about every day. The extra I examine, Korean dishes feel an unlimited question mark to me, rather than an exclamation mark,” Website positioning reported, incorporating that he is even now in the system of figuring it out. “Sometimes I would like I could time journey to the Joseon period to knowledge its culinary tradition myself, but that is only in my desires. Fairly than defining (what traditional Korean foods is), I hope I can get an inch nearer to symbolizing the original dishes.”

By Kim Hae-yeon ([email protected])