This volume adds to a small but growing set of English language materials on a food culture that has historically been relatively unknown in the United States. Although Korean cuisine has recently become trendy, and certain items are even becoming mainstream, it has oftentimes been dismissed and even maligned, stereotyped by media representations since the 1950s as unpleasantly pungent and odoriferous. This was largely due to kimchi, a fermented dish made most commonly of salted cabbage, turnip, garlic, spring onion, chili peppers, and dried shrimp or anchovies. Kimchi is traditionally served at every meal and is an ingredient in other dishes, but its spiciness and strong odor contrasts negatively with mainstream American culinary aesthetics and ethos. From ethnographic research, I saw that it oftentimes elicited disgust from non-Koreans and was a frequent topic of discussion among Koreans navigating social niceties in the U.S. or with Americans in Korea.
Kimchi rose to new heights in the U.S. in 2008 when Roy Choi’s Los Angeles-based Kogi food truck began offering “Korean tacos” (beef marinated in a traditional bulgogi sauce, topped with kimchi, and served in a tortilla). Such “mash-ups” had long been popular among Korean Americans, but the food truck brought kimchi to the attention of the food media and food industry. Concurrent trends around fermentation as healthy eating, the “foodie” approach to food, and culinary tourism were opening up the national palate to such tastes, and kimchi has since become a fixture in mainstream supermarkets and contemporary dining establishments. I’ve even seen it offered as a condiment for hot dogs and hamburgers. Other Korean ingredients are now easily available, such as kim (sheets of dried, roasted seaweed oftentimes salted and flavored with sesame oil); gochujang (fermented chili pepper paste), and Korean dishes such as bibimbap (rice topped with varieties of vegetables), Korean-style fried chicken, bulgogi and kalbi (marinated grilled beef and ribs) are frequently on menus of pan-Asian and trendier restaurants.
All of this background is to point out that scholarly works in English on this food culture are noticeably lacking. That is not to say that Koreans themselves have ignored it. Seoul had a kimchi museum before the possibility of a museum dedicated to food was on the radar of most Americans, and the national government since the 1970s has recognized artisans of selected foodways as “living national treasures.” Several recent publications have focused on Korean food culture as an ethnic cuisine, notably, Sonia Ryang’s Eating Korean in America: Gastronomic Ethnography of Authenticity (University of Hawaii Press, 2015) and Robert Ji-Song Ku’s edited collections, Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA(University of Hawaii Press, 2013) and, with Martin F. Manalansan and Anita Mannur, Eating Asian America: A Food Studies Reader (NYU Press, 2013). This interdisciplinary volume, however, focuses on Korean food culture in its own right, not as an “ethnic” cuisine defined by its contrast within a “host” culture, and it offers a Korean perspective. The editors come from sociology and communications, while contributors represent fields in the social sciences, humanities, and nutritional science. Data is drawn from ethnographic studies as well as historical documents, literature, and popular media.
The volume begins with an introduction by the editors contextualizing the contents within contemporary scholarship. The thirteen articles that follow were previously published in peer-reviewed journals, some of which would be unavailable to most English-speaking readers, and are divided into four sections.
Part I, From Colonialism and Hunger to Food Sovereignty, gives historical background on Korean food. Chaisung Lim describes how Japanese occupation (1919-1945), WWII, the resulting division of the peninsula by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and the Korean War (1950-1953) shaped agricultural uses of land. Next, Soh-yon Yi demonstrates that post-war novels show a shift from food being used to represent the poverty and hardships of those times to standing for the complexities of modernization. Byeong-Seon Yoon and Wonkyu Song end this section with an analysis of movements around the rights of peasants and food sovereignty, connecting them with global issues around communities wanting control over their own food choices, and the issues arising from agriculture becoming big business.
Part II on National Cuisine in the Era of Globalization will probably be of particular interest to folklorists. Hong Sik Cho analyzes the processes by which kimchi became a symbol of national identity. Interestingly, Japanese adaptation (perhaps appropriation would be a better word?) of kimchi to their aesthetics with less garlic and less pungency probably made it more acceptable to Westerners. Seungsook Moon then offers an insightful discussion on the nature of tradition and the politics around reinventing Buddhist temple cuisine. Jeehee Kim analyzes this cuisine within the context of modernity and capitalism, raising issues over the state-sponsored mobilization of “tradition” for economic development purposes. Jaehyeon Jeong closes this section with an analysis of the Korean government’s discourse on national cuisine, identifying some of the mechanisms by which such cuisines are invented and promoted.
The third part, Food Practices in Multicultural Korea, offers nutritional science studies that challenge the historical perception of this nation as homogenous. Hyunseo Park and Youngmin Lee demonstrate that halal food has reached Korea, and Korean food companies are now responding to that globalization. Haney Choi, Hye Won Chung, Ji-Yun Hwang, and Namsoo Chang then analyze factors causing food insecurity among Vietnamese immigrant wives of Korean husbands, citing economic concerns but also the unavailability of foods they like. Along the same lines, Youngil Park, Hee Sun Jeong, and Nami Joo examine how multicultural family wives adapt to Korean foods and dietary patterns, concluding that most become accustomed after a while.
Part IV, Food Tourism and Food Crisis, addresses contemporary issues and the future of Korean food. Jee Hye Lee finds that the educational level of tourists in Korea correlates with satisfaction with the food, while Joung-Min Son, Eun-Jin Lee, and Hak-Seon Kim assess the importance of food for domestic tourists in the city of Busan. The final article, by Dong-Yeob Kim, analyzes food insecurity during the 2007-2008 rice crisis, and the connections with economic policy.
In conclusion, this volume will be of interest most obviously to scholars in Asian studies and food studies, but individual articles and the introduction will prove useful to anyone concerned with issues of cultural representation, nationalism, globalization, and the nature and invention of tradition. It is also appropriate for use in undergraduate and graduate classrooms, particularly given the current interest in K-pop and Korean television dramas and films. It also illustrates a diversity of possible disciplinary approaches to studying food. Overall, the volume contributes to the literature in a number of fields, and sheds light on the complexity—and richness--of a food culture only now being recognized in the U.S. mainstream. Perhaps most significantly, it offers perspectives from within a culture not often seen by Western scholars, providing a more global context for examining issues of crucial concern.
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[Review length: 1144 words • Review posted on May 21, 2023]