Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophes’ worst-named ongoing segment, Looking in Abroad’s Pantries, where Jon O’Guin, a white man with Internet access and little formal training, gives you the Cliff Notes version of the distinct features of a nation’s cuisine. I am that white man, and today we’re talking about Korean Cuisine.

Torn Between Two Worlds, Twice

The first thing that I want to note is, as the title suggests, we’ll be predominantly focusing on South Korean cuisine, since that’s the variety that has the most discussion about it, given North Korea’s creative interpretation of cultural exchange.

This is Polgasari, North Korea’s version of Godzilla, made in 1978, when (checks notes) Kim Jong-il kidnapped a Japanese director and his wife for SEVEN YEARS to force him to make movies in North Korea.
Yes. Great inter-cultural pollination there.

This is not to imply that the cuisine in the North and the South is vastly different: my understanding is that the two are actually quite similar, other than South Korea having better access to meats, and some differences in flavor (with North Korea veering toward a complex “tangy” flavor, while South Korea leans a little more toward “fermented and spicy”.

Even easier for American consumption is another crucial fact about Korea: Its location.

China to the left of me, Jah-pan to the right.
Here I am
Stuck in Korea with you.

For some reason, I am CONTINUALLY under the impression that Japan is farther south than it is, and that Korea is just barely north of it. As the image hopefully shows you, that belief is wrong, and Korea is, essentially, directly between Japan and China. It is an equal distance from Seoul to both Hiroshima and Qingdao, and an equal distance to both Shanghai and Kyoto, almost the same distance to Beijing. Hell, Seoul is closer to Beijing and Shanghai than they are to each other.

Thus, when you really break down Korean food, it can help Americans less familiar with the smaller country to understand that, in many ways, Korea is influenced by both Japan and China, and its foods often meld the two approaches in interesting ways, as well as forming their own distinct style.  So let’s focus on a couple key parts of what defines Korean cuisine, with some examples!

Banchan – Kimchi

I got all the way through this post before I realized that starting the list with TWO Korean words wasn’t great for set-up.
”Banchan” is the idea/key part, “Kimchi” is the example.
This is Kimchi, probably being served as a Banchan. Look, it makes more sense in a second.

I briefly mentioned Banchan in Monday’s post, but they’re a kind of crucial tool for understanding Korean food traditions, much like Washoku and the ichiju-sansai presentation are important for Japan. In fact, the two are basically the same concept, processed through different cultural lenses. IF you don’t have time to read the Washoku post, I’ll quickly summarize: traditional “harmonic” Japanese cuisine (washoku) focused on balancing meals using different cooking methods, colors, and tastes, along with a presentation that a meal consisted of rice, accompanied by 1 soup (ichi-ju) and 3 ‘sides’ (sansei) consisting of cooked or pickled meats or vegetables. Banchan is…technically the name of the Korean side dishes, but speaks to a similar kind of presentation: a meal should have a starch (typically rice, but noodles are not unheard of), as well as a variety of side dishes, typically consisting of cooked or pickled meat and vegetables.

Kimchi is the premiere example of Banchan, often considered a necessary one. A formal Korean dinner table without Kimchi is like an American Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes: their presence isn’t technically mandatory, but if they’re NOT there, it’s confusing to the point that you have to explain why. You could also compare the idea to fries at a fast-food place. What’s the difference between “a burger” and “a meal”? Fries. (You could make a slightly better argument here comparing the fries to the aforementioned rice/noodles, since they’re both starches, but it’s not MY fault that Korean cuisine as one more “necessary” element than our fast food scene, so I’m using the sloppy comparison.) You could ALMOST compare its absence to a dinner table missing salt and pepper…but I won’t for reasons I’ll elaborate on later.

And while most people think of Kimchi as “cabbage fermented with chili powder”, that’s technically only the most common form of it, called baechu kimchi, which is literally just “cabbage kimchi”. There are plenty of other variations, using different vegetables, different fermenting brines, things that are technically not truly fermented, but instead quick-pickled…hell, there are several dishes that are, essentially, kimchi-ed meat or fish. (They aren’t CALLED that, since the word kimchi literally translates to something like “submerged vegetable”, so it would be like calling something a “beef pickle”…which, damn it, is apparently a thing in India. HOW? You guys don’t even EAT Beef! (Which isn’t true: while yes, the majority of India is Hindu and tries to avoid beef, that still leaves HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of Indians who can and do. There are almost three times as many Muslim Indians as there are Italians, period. ) Speaking of fermentation and chili powder…

Fermented Fire – Gochujang

Sauces are always weird to picture. Like, This COULD be just a think of ketchup. Red Goo is Red Goo.

As we’ve talked about a couple times, Gochujang is a fermented soy paste flavored with chili powder, and its ubiquitiy is the reason I wouldn’t call kimchi the “salt and pepper” of Korea. Gochujang is closer to that comparison, since it’s a true condiment. And also because it’s peppery and salty.

It’s also a great example of that sort of mingling of worlds we mentioned earlier. One of the complaints site Otaku and head of Weeabo Studies Joe Seguin has with Japanese food is that, for whatever reason, spiciness never really caught on in the country outside of wasabi and some occasionally spicy soups. China, on the other hand, was deeply involved in spice trading, and Sichuan cooking in particular is known for its spicy flavors, but doesn’t use Soybean products quite as rigorously as Japan does. Gochujang represents the meeting point of salty miso paste and fiery chiles combining.

And Fermentation is, in a lot of ways, Korea’s big “thing” between its two neighbors. While all three have rich traditions of fermentation, the smaller size of Korea, combined with its relatively harsher winters (Winter in Seoul is often 15 degrees (Fahrenheit, so around 8-9 degrees Celsius) colder than in, say, Tokyo), incentivized it to rely on conserving vegetables and other fresh foods. But that’s not the only thing that helps them through those winters, so let’s get jjigae with it! 

Stews – Budae Jjigae

And before you ask, no, it didn’t run for President.
And yes, those are instant ramen noodles.
Not all traditions are super-fancy.

Like with Japanese Washoku, full Korean dinners are often expected to include either a jjigae (‘stew’, roughly), or guk (‘soup’, kinda), which further highlights the parallels between formal Korean meals and the Japanese Washoku tradition (indeed, some have argued that it’s weird to CALL the idea a purely Japanese tradition, given the Korean adoption of such a similar style)

Budae Jjigae, or “Army stew” is a stew based on cooking noodles with broth, gochujang, sausage, and pork. And by ‘sausage’, I mean “hot dogs”. And by “pork”, I mean “Spam”. Did I not mention that the Army referenced in the name is the US Army? Yeah, Budae Jjigae was invented by Koreans buying surplus supplies from US military personal during and after the war, and making soup with the pieces. Supposedly, it was very well-liked by LBJ when he visited, and it’s maintained popularity with Koreans ever since.

The dish is mostly notable for being much thicker and more rustic than Japanese style soups, and often pushing the spicy quotient, often being made with both kimchi and gochujang, as well has there BEING “kimchi jjigae” and “gochujang jjigae” There’s also sundubu jjigae, which is “soft tofu stew”, made by mixing bricks of soft tofu with a spicy jjigae base. WHICH BRINGS ME TO ANOTHER TOPIC

Muk-in about – Tteokbokki

These LOOK like Hot Dogs, but they’re not. But that’s probably a great way to think of tteokbokki: vegetarian lil smokies.

Man, this is probably going to be the most controversial portion of the list, because I am conflating two WILDLY different things to make this point. Tteokbokki are rice cakes, not dissimilar to Japanese Mochi: pounded sweet rice that’s formed into little cakes or dumplings that are nice and chewy, and often served in sauce or soups. Muk are an entirely different group of jellies, formed from other grains, beans, or nuts. You can have acorn jellies, Walnut jellies, mung bean jellies. Mung bean jelly actually gets made into noodles fairly often.

The main point is that it’s a textural component of Korean foods that again plays to that “half-way between Japan and China” motif: while Japan appreciates a variety of textures, they’re not as into it as, say, China is. And the chewy ‘jellies” and “cakes” of Korean food are a nice boundary. But there’s one last category that we need to touch on if we want to wrap this up in a reasonable amount of time.

Barbecue, Beef, and Bulgogi

I’m not going to lie, I got caught up in finding a good pic of Korean Barbecue, and have no idea if any of these meats are beef.

This is a bit of a weird one, but while Japan gets the more internationally recognized ‘great beef’ label thanks to wagyu, it’s also worth noting that there aren’t nearly as many Yakiniku parlors around the world as there are Korean Barbecue places.

If you’ve never been to one, a Korean barbecue place is one where your table has a built in grill that YOU often operate (I believe in some American style ones, the staff can cook your food for you, in a pseudo-hibachi style situation…which is kind of the main contrasting point to my previous argument, but we do NOT have time to dive into the intricacies of Hibachi/Yakiniku/Korean BBQ), cooking the meat to your preferred doneness. You are also served a lot of banchan. And it’s kind of a great synthesis of several of the earlier points, and some I haven’t touched on yet.

Korea has a fascinating and complicated history with Beef, with it being seen as “the king of meats”, since it was so rare to get to eat it, given the value of cattle as farm labor. This was also impacted by a long focus on vegetarian cuisine influenced by Buddhist traditions, which helped create the idea of “banchan”, since it’s harder to get ‘bored’ of vegetarian food when it comes in a wide variety with every meal. Maybe you’re sick of fried mushrooms, but steamed garlic spinach gets you through the meal.

This is an 18 bowl, completely vegetarian, arrangement of Banchan. That’s a LOT of options.

This changed when the Mongol empire dominated China and Korea, and reintroduced and popularized the idea of sharing grilled meats with your friends over drinks, particularly beef. (As I’ve mentioned at least once before, “Mongolian” is basically the Chinese equivalent of calling something “Cowboy” in America: it implies that it’s a lot of intensely flavored food, probably beef. So where Japan has the higher quality beef, Korea has a moderately wider beef culture.

And the style is very unifying for the examples used today: As noted, it’s traditionally served with Banchan such as Kimchi. Gochujang plays a large part, both in the marinades of many of the meats, and as a sauce swiped on them just before eating. You can heat guks or jjigaes on the same fire, perhaps toying with hot-pot style cooking. It’s a sort of unity of all the points. And, since it’s a form of grilling, you can really see the differences. Think about it: China tended to stir-fry their beer, making Mongolian beef, or Oyster Beef, or Beef and Broccoli. Japan’s is sweet and salty beef teriyaki. But in Korea, you get Bulgogi, literally, “fire-meat”. It’s spicier, with garlic, pepper, and even gochujang often in the marinade, but it’s the same idea.

So when it comes to Korean food, what distinguishes it from other East Asian cuisines is

-the amount of fermentation present on almost every plate.

-A love of spicy foods, and hot thick stews.

-More ‘chewy’ foods

And

-More barbecue.

This is only scratching the surface. We didn’t touch on Gochugaru (Korean Chili Flakes, the red stuff they use to make kimchi and gochujang), the complex influences of Korean royal dining or surasang, which kind of cemented the banchan idea, with royal meals having 30 distinct dishes and “stations” in correct service, additional effects of America’s influence during and after the war. (I Legitimately lost my shit for like, 6 minutes during the “Somebody Feed Phil” episode in Seoul, where a pot of tteokbokki soup was finished with what looked like a 2 cup ‘sprinkle’ of shredded cheese, because of how RARE cheese is as an ingredient in Asia, which made me feel CERTAIN the idea had to have been adapted from Western soup traditions like Chili or French onion. And maybe I’m wrong, and it’s tied to something else, which would be even COOLER. It’d be like someone in Ohio putting pineapple on sushi, and it’s somehow NOT connected to some weird translation from Japan through Hawai’i) But we’re not here for the deep dives, we’re here for the pantry raid. So grab what you got from this, and let’s escape.

MONDAY: EITHER GRILLING PORK OR FRYING CHICKEN. I THINK THE PORK, BUT IT LEAVES ME IN A WEIRD PLACE ON THURSDAY.

THURSDAY: MAYBE WE TALK ABOUT THAI FOOD/PORTLAND. OR MAYBE WE HAVE TO COME UP WITH SOMETHING.