Korean Food Culture: A Cuisine Influenced By Many Cultures

KOREAN FOOD CULTURE: A CUISINE INFLUENCED BY MANY CULTURES

A HISTORY AND COOK BOOK

By Zoe Lee-Park

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Dedicated with love to Grandma ~우리의 사랑하는 할머니~

Table of Contents:

Introduction: Annyeonghaseyo!

Jajangmyeon

Budaejigae

The Controversy of Kimbap

Mandu

Interview with Mom

Works Cited and Consulted

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(Note: The little artworks on each page is by a family favorite artist, Saimdang Shin)

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3 Annyeonghaseyo! Hello!

My name is Zoe, and I am a third-generation Korean American. I was born in Berkeley but was raised in Santa Barbara, where I did not really experience my Korean culture all that much: there just wasn't the vibrant Korean and Korean American communities that you see in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles and San Diego. Mom and Dad cooked quite the mélange of dishes from all different cultures and cuisines for my two younger twin sisters and me. But for this project, I really wanted to dig into the history of my ~ethnic~ food culture, which is the Korean food my (maternal) grandma made for us. Grandma spoils us with her delicious cooking.

Before I was born, she had hosted g ​ igantic​ church dinners at her house. My dad, who attended the same Korean Catholic church in Oakland with his family, remembers re-discovering his love for Korean food a ​ tm ​ y mom's mom's house (my grandma's) back in the early '90's.

I always thought everything my grandma made me was "Korean food,” but I realized and learned that many of my most favorite dishes were actually the products and legacies of Korea's history with other foreign nations. I was amazed​ just how much Koreans, and immigrants, invaders, and other people who came into Korea, took food from different cuisines and made them into new dishes that became uniquely Korean.

I often help my grandma make the four dishes I chose for this cookbook. I made budaejigae and kimbap with her two weekends ago, and the pictures in here are from that.

I comparison shopped for Jajangmyun!

From top to bottom: Our family, at Cal on the Faculty Glade; My maternal grandparents, aunt (left), and mom (right) in Korea; Dad (left) and his mom and older brother Ed in front of their house in Berkeley in the early 90’s; Touristy shenanigans on our first trip Seoul in 2016

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Jajangmyun

Jajangmyun is the "signature" Korean-Chinese dish, noodles drenched in a rich, very decadent, fermented black soybean sauce.

The chef uses a wok to stir-fry seafood, beef or pork, onions, carrots, and zucchini. She serves it with fresh julienned cucumber and some pickled radish on the side. Grandma would make jajangmyun often, and we also would go to the jajangmyun restaurants in Concord where Grandma knew the owners: "Hi Mrs. Kim! How are you?" My dad, everytime, had to protect us first: he made bibs using plastic shopping bags, such that I have many fond memories of being strangled by a plastic bag as we were slurping up those delicious noodles.

I found that the history of jajangmyun dates back to 1882, when some forty merchants from the Shandong Province of China migrated to Korea as part of a military contingent sent by the Qing Emperor. They settled in Incheon, a port city west of Seoul.

Around 1905, these immigrants opened Gonghwachun, a Chinese restaurant (Kayal). Here, they "metamorphosed" their zhajiangmian noodle dish into something their Korean customers would find more delicious: they didn’t use the salty, brown yellow bean sauce for zhajiangmian, and instead they substituted a darker, sweet chunjang (black bean paste from roasted soybeans), which they thickened with cornstarch (Sophia Lee). They made a noodle dish that was richer, blacker, and sweeter than its Chinese original, and they also added many kinds of vegetables for texture and flavor. They originally made the noodles from rice flour.

After the devastating Korean War, people in Korea re-made the jajangmyun once again, using ingredients from other foreigners. Koreans learned to make noodles from the flour that the Americans had sent as aid (Arirang). Korean chefs learned to make longer, chewier noodles with the plentiful flour that seemed to last forever. Korean noodle-makers made long noodles by hand with craft and skill, and even though this was more labor intensive, the price of jajangmyun fell. In crushing poverty, many people could still afford a bowl.

My grandmother grew up in the ashes of that war. I had always known that Grandma loved jjajangmyun, but I had not known that grandma was from a family

5 of merchants, that she grew up near Incheon, and that her neighbors were a family of Chinese immigrants that made and sold jajangmyun to the locals in the area. Grandma would often go over to the Chinese house after school and on the weekends to hang out with the kids and have a hot bowl of jajangmyun. The Chinese Korean dad was an amazing chef, among the first to pull American-flour noodles, and thus he contributed to the development of Korea’s national food culture. My grandmother grew up during this amazing moment, eating this signature dish. Her own neighbors were among the first to popularize jajangmyun, and she was one of the first to experience its popularity.

I learned on my first trip to Korea back in 2016 that Koreans order jjajangmyun a ​ ll​ the time. While Americans have their pizzas delivered pronto, Koreans' favorite delivery fast food is jajangmyun. As Korea modernized in the 1970's, jajangmyun became, literally, a fast food: it is cheap, convenient, and casual (Sophia Lee). When you order jajangmyun, a guy on a motorcycle will deliver the food, and he's so fast that the noodles aren't even a little puffy or sticky, thanks to his metal delivery case (Arirang).

Even in the most remote and quiet parts of Korea, in small towns like Sokcho and Gyeongsang, the motorcycle guys deliver to people in parks and other outdoor places.

I'll never forget, on our first trip to Sokcho, when we were sitting on the beach and a motorcycle guy pulled up to his customers and whipped out two huge bowls of steaming jajangmyun, kimchi (pickled side dish), and utensils, and then zoomed away.

The same guy came back an hour later to pick up the bowls and utensils.

Grandma's neighbors were pioneers of Korean-Chinese food culture in Korea, and they worked with their own Korean customers to use Chinese, Korean, and then American ingredients and techniques to make this distinctively “Korean” noodle dish. Grandma made this dish for us, but Koreans everywhere eat jajangmyeon everywhere, it sells like crazy, and it really is a ​Korean​ noodle dish because no one can find this particular version in a Chinese restaurant or even in a Korean one. You can find this in Chinese Korean restaurants, popular everywhere in Korea and now in the United States (Sunny Lee). On a recent trip to Shanghai with my mom, I found that jajangmyun was just not on the menu, and yet we found it in restaurants run by Koreans. I find this absolutely fascinating.

Jajangmyeon Recipe​: from Emily Kim’s famous Maangchi Cooking Blog, and all modifications are from Mom who learned from Grandma.

Ingredients​: ​~​ we buy many of our ingredients from online, but also frequent Safeway. H Mart is the Korean grocery store our family often goes to. We also order food items online from them too.

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Jajangmyeon noodles​ (can ONLY be found at Korean markets and Korean markets online, as well as Amazon. H Mart: $7.99. Amazon: $12.99 [4 lb bulk]) ½ pound beef, cut in ⅛ cubes ​(Safeway: $2.50 chuck (½ pound); H Mart: $4.25 ribeye) 1 cup of Korean radish, cut into ¼ inch cubes (1 cup’s worth ) ​(most ASIAN markets and Amazon ~ H Mart: $2.25; Amazon: $2 for 8 ounces) 1 cup of zucchini, cut into ½ inch cubes ​(Safeway: 1 for $0.99; H Mart: 1 for $1.60) 2 cups of carrots, cut into ¼ inch small pieces ​(Safeway: $1.69; H Mart $1.69) 1 cup of potatoes, peeled and cut into ½ inch cubes ​(Safeway: $0.75 for 1; H Mart $1) 1 ½ cups of onion cut into chunks (​Safeway: 1 for $1.30; H Mart $1.24) ¼ cup and 1 tablespoon of black bean paste ~ can ONLY be found in ASIAN markets ​(H Mart $2.19; Amazon: $11.98 for 17.6 oz [bulk size]) 2 tablespoons of cornstarch powder, combined with ¼ cup water in a small bowl, set aside​ (Amazon: $1.99; Safeway: $1.80) 1 teaspoon of sesame oil ~ sold in American markets too ​(Amazon: $4.29 for 8.4 ounces; Safeway: $4.50) ½ cup cucumbers, julienned for garnish ​(Safeway: $0.99 for 1; H Mart: $1 for 1) Estimated Price Total: $26.43 - $44.55 ~ average: $35.49 [note if you buy something in bulk you won’t have to buy it again for a while!]

Noodles​: 1. Boil and drain the noodles. Rinse and strain in cold water.

2. Put one serving of noodles onto a serving plate and add the ​jajang​ sauce (see next part) over top. Garnish with cucumber strips and serve immediately with kimchi or yellow pickled radish.

Goomi​ (sauce and stuff): 1. Stir-fry the beef in a wok with 1 Tablespoon of sesame oil for about 4-5 minutes until browned.

2. Add radish and stir fry for 1 minute.

3. Add potato, onion, carrot, and zucchini and keep stirring for about 3 minutes 4. Add 2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil to the center of the wok, then add ¼ cup of black bean paste and stir it with a wooden spoon for 1 minute to cook it Then mix everything in the wok and keep stirring.

5. Add 2 cups of water and let it cook with the lid closed for 10 minutes.

6. Stir into fully cooked, add the cornstarch water little by little. Keep stirring until it’s well mixed and thick.

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Budaejigae ("Army Stew")

Jigaes are a type of traditional Korean stew. Koreans make this spicy and savory stew with hot pepper paste and hot pepper flakes, kimchi, and diced onions and other fresh vegetables. They use seafood, pork, or beef for flavor. However, the twist with “budaejjigae,” or “Army Stew,” is that it has American Spam, American canned beans, hot dog sausages, and sometimes American cheese.

The Japanese Empire had ruled Korea for thirty-five years (1910-1945). When they left, the Korean people divided and formed different political groups, each declaring themselves legitimate (Lankov). President Truman and the other American leaders began to provide resources and support for educated and landed Koreans, those who feared a communist takeover, even though the wealthier Koreans had collaborated with the Japanese to keep their land and wealth (Armstrong).

Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong supported the poorer, landless Koreans who formed the majority of the people; they demanded “redistribution” of all land and wealth, plus “accountability” for all of those “collaborators” (Matray). The Americans and their Korean allies in the South armed themselves with American weapons, while peasants in the South and a new Communist government in the North armed themselves with Soviet and Chinese weapons. From 1950 to 1953, they devastated the peninsula.

After the Korean War in 1953, the American Eighth Army remained in South Korea. That Army is there to this day, because the two Koreas did not formally sign a peace treaty to end the war, but only an armistice instead.

Because Korea was so poor, the Americans imported their own food, including canned meats. They often shared with the locals, and so Koreans also found new ways to incorporate the unique foods into their recipes (Kim). They added Spam, sausages, baked beans, and American cheese to their traditional stews (Oh). This was how a uniquely Korean-American stew was born!

8 Budae-jjigae is a quick meal. It’s a budget-friendly fast eat, and it’s no wonder that it’s popular in food courts, university campuses, and rest stops. Young college students often serve this to other young college students; they come out with small portable burners and large saucer-like pots with everything you need ready to go!

I had always wondered why Grandma had put mini wiener hotdogs and little beans into her spicy kimchi stews. It turned out, as I learned from my first trip to Korea, that she had been making budae-jjigae this whole time.

Budae-jjigae is just one example of how the American presence in Korea influenced the people's everyday lives. You often learn about how the Americans influenced and got involved with the country's legal and economic spheres; for example, a number of South Korean laws were based off of American laws; but, as Euny Hong explains in her book, T ​ he Birth of Korean Cool, American culture also tremendously influenced Koreans. But now the influences move in the opposite direction, too. Beginning in the 1990's, the Korean government began investing in “cultural productions,” including popular entertainment for export, or what the political scientists call "soft power.” "Soft power," as Robert Guest explains in his book, ​Borderless Economics, attracts other people in other countries, and without question, Korea became very attractive indeed. Even though televised soap-operas, pop music, and action movies originally came from the United States to Korea, Korean versions of these things dominate a huge portion of entertainment throughout the world, and millions of people now come as tourists to visit Korea.

Koreans would never have invented budaejjigae without the American presence in Korea. Spam is not indigenous to Seoul, but thousands of Koreans line up for an adapted Korean stew that is served in all of the iconic hoppin' and poppin' eateries in Hongdae and other college districts everywhere.

9 Budaejigae Recipe​: Recipe from Grandma!

For the stock: ● Shiitake mushrooms ● Anchovy stock from the Korean market or made homemade in a soup strainer and fresh anchovies ● 2 teaspoon salt ● 16 cups of water For the seasoning:

● 18 cloves of garlic, minced well ● 2 tablespoons hot pepper paste (gochujang) ~ now found at Safeway

● 4 tablespoons hot pepper flakes (gochugaru) ~ sold in every Asian market

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2 tablespoons of soy sauce 2-3 teaspoons of sugar 4 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon of soy bean paste ~ found in Asian markets

For yummy parts of the stew:

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1 pound of pork belly cut into small pieces 2-3 cup of cabbage, cut into small pieces 1 medium onion, sliced small 4 green onions, chopped into finger-length pieces 1-2 cups of kimchi ~ now found at Safeway and Costco

● 1 pack of all-beef frank sausages, sliced (essentially any sausage)

● 1-2 packs of SPAM, sliced into small bite-sized cubes ● Optional: 1 packs of instant Korean Ramen ~ found at Safeway and Costco, and can be bought in any Asian market

● 1 cup of medium-firmness tofu, sliced into cubes. ● ½ cup canned baked beans ● 20 rice cakes ~ Asian markets

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Steps: For the soup and seasoning paste:

1.

Combine your stock ingredients in a pot and allow it to cook for half an hour. Add pork and let it cook for 10-15 more minutes.

2. Take out the anchovies. Strain the mixture, saving the mushrooms and pork for the larger stew.

3. Mix your paste ingredients in a separate bowl.

Arrange the yummy ingredients in a pot: Order:

1. Put cabbage, onions, green onion, pork, and shitake mushrooms at the bottom of the pot.

2. Add your kimchi and paste.

3. Add spam, sausages, rice cakes, tofu cubes, baked beans, and ramen.

4. Add your stock.

Cook on a burner for 10 minutes and enjoy!

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The Controversy of Kimbap

The Japanese influence in Korea is obvious, but because of the history between the two countries, it’s complicated. In southern Korea, especially near the ports, Japanese people had brought food and food culture since forever, and Japanese restaurants have always been popular in port cities like Busan, just a few hundred miles from Japan.

But my grandparents were born during the Japanese occupation of Korea, and they grew up during those years when the Japanese were especially abusive. I learned from my grandpa that the Japanese and Koreans have had a tense, bad, relationship, and after visiting the National War Museum with Grandpa in Seoul back in 2016, I learned that the Japanese military leaders have always been the ones to attack Korea, never the other way around. During the Japanese Occupation from 1910-1945, Japanese leaders used Korea to produce products like rice, and to extract raw materials from Korea.

The Japanese treated their colonized people terribly, forcing them to be servants of their Emperor and stripping them of their own cultural identities, governance, and ways of life (Linda Sue Park). When he was a young boy, my grandpa was not able to speak Korean in school, he had to take a Japanese name, and his family had to surrender the rice that the Japanese had seized. Koreans never forgot these things: even in contemporary trade disputes, Koreans protest the Japanese government in ways that are deep and painful. This past summer, for example, when I was in Korea, Korea and Japan were again locked in a dispute involving their tortured past, and Koreans in Seoul were demanding that their fellow Koreans boycott Uniqlo and other Japanese businesses.

However, younger Koreans today enjoy many things that date to that​ history of colonization. From manga cartoons to stationary and pens, the Japanese influence in Korea is quite apparent, and the overlaps between “Korean” and “Japanese” are so

12 confusing and mixed that it’s often difficult to separate one from the other. Thus, I was not surprised that I found conflicting information about the origins of kimbap.

Kimbap is rolled rice with lots of vegetables, egg, and, sometimes, a little bit of beef. You make kimbap just like you would make sushi: on a flat piece of seaweed and a rolling mat, and you cut it into bite size pieces. However, the difference is that kimbap does not include fish, and the rice is seasoned with sesame oil and is not on the outside but the inside. And again, all those vegetables, make the roll very colorful; it's in a convenient, portable form, perfect for lunchboxes for studious students and for busy adults.

But let’s get back on the Disputed Origins of Kimbap: You have a number of Koreans, like my grandpa and grandma, who strongly believe kimbap is a Korean food, and the Japanese likely copied kimbap to make sushi. This argument is not unreasonable, as throughout history, whenever the Japanese invaded Korea, they often took a number of things with them--ideas, ideologies, inventions, and craft products--and people, too, like artisans, chefs, and scholars (Szczepanski). Hence, many Koreans believe that the kimbap is a modernized version of bokssam, which came from a longtime tradition of wrapping kim (flattened, toasted, and salted seaweed) in cooked rice and banchan (side dishes) (Oh). Or, possibly, it is derived from kimssam, a rice and seaweed wrap (“About”). These foods date very far back in Korea's history.

Other people, however, believe that kimbap could possibly be a product of the Japanese colonization. Some people believe this was when Koreans were introduced to Japanese norimaki, sushi rolls (Jung-Bae Park). Koreans decided to make a Korean version of the Japanese sushi rolls, but using ingredients Koreans enjoyed, like seasoned vegetables and yellow pickles). Norimaki became a term that was used interchangeably with kimbap during the time when speaking Korean was prohibited (“What”).

Who knows if kimbap came first or sushi came first, who influenced whom? Maybe they developed concurrently and independently of each other. When I was younger, I always referred to kimbap, to my non-Korean friends, as "a Korean version of sushi." However, I think it's important now to consider which one actually came first. It never occurred to me that sushi might be a "Japanese version of kimbap."

13 Whatever kimbap's origins are, Koreans view kimbap as a truly Korean food.

On my trips to Korea, I found that you can buy kimbap just about everywhere: convenience stores, street food vendors like in the huge shopping district of Myeongdong, and in the grocery stores where Korean ahjummas (middle aged ladies) try to make you try a bite so you'll buy ready-to-eat rolls.

In my family, Grandma makes kimbap for family holiday outings. Fourth of July? Kimbap picnic in the park under the fireworks. Hiking trip? Kimbap with a beautiful view! This was the one meal that my sisters and I could ​easily​ help Grandma make, even though our rolls never turned out as beautiful and tightly rolled as hers. Kimbap, to me, has always been Korean. And I too believe that it has every right to stand not as an adaptation of something foreign, but as its own invention and original, just as sushi is so often associated with Japan.

KIMBAP RECIPE​: Grandma’s recipe!

Ingredients: makes 5 long rolls ● 5 sheets of kim (seaweed paper), roasted slightly ~ sold in Asian markets ● 4 cups cooked rice (short or long, or a mixture) ● ½ pound beef -- eye of round beef ● Korean fish cakes -- sliced into strips ¼ inch round, as long as the kim ~ Asian markets not American supermarkets ● 1 large carrot cut into thin strips as long as the kim ● Yellow pickled radish ~ again in Asian markets ● 1 small bunch of spinach, blanched, rinsed in cold water, and strained ● 1 cucumber cut into thin strips as long as the kim ● 3 eggs ● 3 garlic cloves ● 2 teaspoons soy sauce ● 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon brown sugar ● 1½ teaspoon salt ● 2½ tablespoons sesame oil

Steps: 1. Rice: mix 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil into your right-out-of-the-rice-cooker rice.

2. Vegetables:

14 - Spinach: Mix your blanched spinach, garlic cloves, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil in a bowl.

- Yellow pickled radish: slice into small rectangular prism strips, the length of your kim sheets - Carrots: Chopped very small. Lightly saute with a 1/4 teaspoon of salt in a few drops of vegetable oil.

- Cucumber: cut just like the yellow pickled radish

3. Meat: mix in a bowl, add 2 teaspoons soy sauce, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon brown sugar, and 2 teaspoons of sesame oil. Saute lightly as well.

4. Eggs: Beat with 1/4 teaspoon of salt and pour on a non-stick pan all the way into a circle that fills the pan. Cook evenly on both sides and once done, cut into 1/2 inch wide strips, the same length as your kim sheets.

Roll steps: 1. Place a sheet of kim on a bamboo mat with the matte site up. Evenly spread rice on top, leaving two-fingers wide space on one side of the kim.

2. Place your meat, fish cake strip, carrots, single yellow pickled radish, cucumber, a couple egg strips, and spinach in the center of the rice.

3. Carefully roll the mat over the spreaded-out inside. Press tightly as you roll! And make sure you push the mat out so it doesn't get wrapped into the roll!

4. Add a little sesame oil on the finished roll with the extra kim part to seal it up. Cut each roll into 1/4 to 1/2 inch bite size pieces (up to you how thick you like your rolls).

5. Enjoy!

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Mandu

I saved my favorite for last. Ever since I was a baby, I have always loved Grandma's "squishy mandu." There were periods of time in my childhood when I could eat five or six of these in one sitting. I l​ ove ​grandma's mandu.

Mandu is indeed the Korean version of Chinese mantou, steamed buns, and baozi, steamed bun with meat filling ("Mandu").

Chinese steamed buns have a white flour or wheat bun outside, with meat or sweet or savory vegetables in the middle, while Korean mandu has a much thinner flour dough wrapper and lots of vegetables, mixed into lean ground beef or pork (if you're Grandma both) inside, and, of course, spicy kimchi.

Unlike jajangmyun, however, mandu has a much longer and storied history in Korea.

The Mongols in the 14th century brought adapted versions of Chinese dumplings to Korea (“Food”). This was during the Goryeo Dynasty of Korea, which was before the incredibly powerful and very long Yi (Lee) Dynasty. During the Goryeo Dynasty, the strong Mongol Empire only permitted Goryeo's existence as a semi-autonomous state to the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, and hence there were many forced marriages between Goryeo princes and Yuan princesses (Cawley and Kim).

There's actually a famous folk song called "Ssanghwajeom" (dumpling shop) from the Goryeo Dynasty, and it describes how a group of Uighurs, who were Muslim Mongols from southern China, arrived and opened dumpling shops in Gaeseong (the capital of the Goryeo Dynasty), and how the people of the day greatly enjoyed the dish (“Goryeo”).

The first shop opened in 1279, during the rule of King Chungryeol (“Mandu”).

Today, mandu is a common and popular street food, sold blisteringly hot and delicious, in mobile pop up carts and little eateries nested into buildings. Additionally, you can buy frozen bags of mandu, now even sold in your typical Costcos and Safeway's. But they're also an essential part of more fancy dishes gracing the tables of families at holidays and special occasions. For example, tteok guk, rice cake soup, traditionally eaten on New Years Day, has mandu.

16 Making mandu, as I learned from watching Grandma, is a painstakingly long process. She creates the filling, which is like a big vegetable meatball, with beef, pork, tofu, kimchi, scallions, chopped vegetables, and generous amounts of spices like garlic and ginger. The filling is then placed inside a mandu wrapper, folded over and pleated. I have countless memories making mandu with my family, sitting around a massive bowl of filling, each of us armed with a spoon and a thick stack of wrappers.

Turn on the cheerful holiday Christmas music or movie (we love "A Christmas Story" and others) and let the mandu marathon begin! We always joke who made which ones once they come out of the steamer or boiler or fryer (yes, our family does all three methods). "Zoe made this one, it's so ugly." Thanks Dad!

But ​Grandma's​ "squishy mandu" is unlike any other mandu because she uses Pillsbury Biscuit Dough as the outer part. Grandma was a busy lady, as she owned a little sandwich deli in Berkeley and had a whole family to feed. Grandma was very innovative.

She learned she could use the Pillsbury Dough for biscuits and make it have the same effect as the usual thin wheat flour wrapper. In fact, the Pillsbury Dough even made the mandu tastier! All that butter! Hence, Grandma took something Korean with Chinese and Mongolian origins, and she Americanized it, modifying it with something more available in a typical American grocery store.

Grandma's mandu is truly special, and it will forever be my favorite thing she makes.

For many of my early childhood years, I thought everyone made mandu like Grandma, with Pillsbury dough or thin wrappers. I also thought mandu was a purely Korean thing.

However, I've learned in my trips to Korea and through the research I've conducted recently that mandu is a product of cultural collision once again, but this time much older, and in the case of our family, with a special, buttery, twist.

GRANDMA'S "SQUISHY MANDU" RECIPE:

Makes 16 squishy mandus: Ingredients: · 1/2 pound ground beef (Safeway: $2.99 for ½ pound; · 1/2 pound ground pork

17 · Pillsbury biscuit ~ 8 in a can · 1.5 cups of steamed and chopped Chinese cabbage · 3/4 cups chopped carrot · 1/4 block tofu, water squeezed out · 1/2 bag steamed and chopped bean sprouts · 2 chopped green onion · 3/4 cups chopped yellow onion · 4-5 pieces of garlic, chopped · 1 teaspoon sesame oil · 2 teaspoons of grounded sesame seeds · 1 teaspoon of salt · 1/2 cup of chopped chives

Steps: 1. Mix all ingredients in a big bowl; add salt to taste 2. Add one egg.

3. Roll and spread out biscuit dough (1/2) add a tablespoon of the filling mixture. Pinch ends tightly!

4. Steam for 10 minutes on medium heat 5. Enjoy with dipping sauce: 3 tablespoons soy sauce, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil, and a dash of black pepper.

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An Interview with Mom​: lots of gasping and new information I had never known

Zoe: So I will be interviewing my Mom, who is a very busy lady. Thank you Mom for taking the time to let me interview you, and thank you for letting me tag along on those shopping trips so I could comparison shop ingredients.

Mom: Sure thing Zo.

Zoe: Okey dokey. So, Mom, to give you a little bit of background of what we’ve been learning about in class, one of the readings we talked about a lot is by a man named Wendell Berry, and he writes about how food is a “cultural project,” as, I quote, “good farmers are a cultural product made by generations of experience, handed down in households, friendships, and communities n ​ ative​ to their own ground.” Mr. Berry was from Kentucky and he once belonged to a community of small farmers who produced food for each other and maintained a local economy. However, agribusiness corporations took over farming and more of his community moved to the cities, where they lost their values in workmanship and craft. His story is very sad, it really shows the massive loss of rural culture, and food culture too. I know this has to do with farmers, but how do you think immigrants and people who came into Korea have changed the way Korean food is a "cultural product?" Like these people a ​ ren’t natives​ to Korea.

Mom: What Mr. Berry is referring to, a community of small farmers, exists in many, many societies and Korean society was no different. Koreans also had communities of small farmers who produced food and they had small local economies. But, I’m sure even in Kentucky, there were people from other countries that immigrated in and those immigrants would bring their own food culture to that local economy and it would be adopted. I feel like in Korea it would be no different: you would have local economies from the various farmers and workers who lived there, whether they are Koreans or immigrants from other countries. Now, the loss of rural culture is sad, as people move to cities and they losing their craft and knowledge. This happens in every culture where there is modernization and people are leaving it for, you know, jobs in cities. That occurred in Korea as well, as we know Korea modernized, and lots of people left, especially to cities like Seoul. They left behind their family farms and went to the city to find jobs. It was so common. It i​ s​ sad. You do lose that generational knowledge of farming and craft, that people had for many, many, many generations. This is exactly the same whether it’s in Kentucky or Korea. And I do find Mr. Berry calling this local economy “native” kind of interesting… really, communities have immigrants and other

19 people from other countries or other places that are entering in. They would bring their own crafts and skills and they would e ​ nhance​ that local economy. And it was the same in Korea.

Zoe: I didn’t even realize Korea and Kentucky were actually more similar than different.

These systems of local small farm communities in Korea and Kentucky were not closed from outside influences. They were constantly evolving.

Mom: They were not in a bubble.

Zoe: Wow. So my next question is about crises of culture, or food culture. In one of our most poignant readings, the author, Hartmann Deetz, is from the Mashpee people of Massachusetts, and like many other Native American groups, they are not able to take care of and live off of their ancestral lands, and as a result they have lost much of their culture, and generational knowledge regarding their land and their cultural food practices. Deetz explains how the Mashpee people are in a "crisis." His people have to buy food; they've lost their connection with the land. So I’m wondering, Mom, and you probably know more, did Koreans ever have a crisis of culture, like a crisis of losing their food culture. And if so, what was possibly lost?

Mom: Hmm. I think, unlike this example, Koreans were not forced off of their land, they weren’t forced to leave Korea, where they couldn’t farm it. The only crisis that I can think of right now is that Japan during the Japanes occupation did… did have a very detrimental impact on Koreans and their diet. Japan during the occupation forced a reduction of food to the Korean populace, where half of the rice of the crops were sent to Japan and Koreans were not able to eat rice, more than half of the population could not eat rice. Now, in Korea, it’s a known fact that we call the main meal “the rice.” The white rice. That’s the main meal, and all the side dishes, the banchan, they’re considered truly side dishes. When half of your population is being stripped of the white rice that they’re supposed to eat, they’re basically having their main food source taken away from there. So, it’s quite critical, that during that crisis what I would think when Japan occupied Korea, and more than half of the population was deprived of rice, it was very, very serious. We know that Korea had to import millet from China and Manchuria. They had to find other food sources to replace the white rice. But to this day when we speak about “have you eaten” Koreans always think about rice being the main food source.

Zoe: Yeah, absolutely. “Bap” means rice a ​ nd ​food.

20 Mom: Your grandpa told us the story of when he was really young, my grandmother his mother, um, they would farm, they would have the rice, and they would have to send such a large portion of it to Japan. They were forced to. Only a very small amount of rice would be left for the family to eat. And he told me that Grandma, his mother, would only save it for the eldest son.

*Zoe gasps*

Mom: And all the other children had to eat barley or the husks of rice. And so Grandpa would tell us what he ate: the very fibrous husk of the rice, as a main dish. And, he would say it as if he had a bit of sadness in his voice: “the rice was only saved for the eldest son,” the older brother. And, so it is very sad, because these families were actually really enslaved, they were forced to work their own land and give the food to Japan, or they were threatened--the families would be killed if they didn’t do this. So for the land owners, they were in the most difficult situations: they were forced to give up their land, give up their food to Japan.

Zoe: Wow I did NOT know that about Grandpa's oldest brother. Wow. Poor Grandpa. I feel very guilty now not finishing my rice.

Mom: *chuckles* Mmhmm.

Zoe: Wow… I had never known. Okay, so mom, we’re now going to transition into a kind of y ​ our​ personal experience with Korean food. One of our authors, Jack Kloppenburg, explained how "food is much more than just a commodity to be exchanged through a set of impersonal market relationships or a bundle of nutrients." You, Mom, grew up with Grandma cooking Korean food, but did you have communities in which you could share resources with, support each other economically, work together as a community? And you ate foods imported from Korea--I do too. As an immigrant, Grandma had to make do with what she could find, in Chicago, in Utah, and in the Bay Area, as we see with mandu: Pillsbury dough. How would you define and describe your Korean food culture? And is this definition of food maybe limiting to our Korean immigrant experience?

Mom: Ooh, limiting, huh? So when we moved to the U.S., basically in the early 1970’s, I would say there were very little if any Korean supermarkets, especially in Illinois or in Utah. May have been different if we had moved to California earlier on at that time. But I do remember Grandma when we would go back to Korea to visit our family she would bring back things in her suitcase that she couldn’t find in the U.S., because there are definitely things you cannot find in the U.S.

21

Zoe: *gasps and laughing* like what would she bring mom?

Mom: So, red chili peppers, soy bean paste was another one, doenjang, so she would bring certain things because you can’t find them here. And it was a world before amazon. You can’t just have it ordered *laughing* and delivered to your door. And so she would bring it in her suitcase and luckily at that time we didn’t have any issues about bringing those things into countries. But we declared them still. So anyway, she would bring them back and we would enjoy them and what was interesting was Grandma wasn’t the only one who did this. Within our small communities within Chicago, Salt Lake City, we lived amongst other Koreans who we befriended, or we came together through Korean church groups. And we would go to each other's homes, have meals together, socialize together. And so during those times the meals we shared ​were Korean food. And of course, with food items that were brought in or if they were able to make a shopping trip to the one Korean supermarket that may have been in the big city, then people would really share those foods together and cook together. So I would definitely say food for me is Korean food: it’s what my mother made as well as what these other Korean families in the community had shared with me. And it was really a form of sharing and socializing because there was a limited amount of food that we could get that was Korean. So we shared it. It was more difficult for us to eat our cultural food. But in today’s time, to be able to order food from anywhere in the world, this isn’t an issue anymore. But back then, the immigrant experience was more complicated because you couldn’t always get the foods you wanted to cook with.

Zoe: Did you think of Korean food as just food or was it something more special?

Mom: For me it was my everyday food, and I always thought eating American food, like going out to pizza, was unique and special. Even though the ingredients were limited, Grandma was able to make it last and surprisingly when you have the basic ingredients, like you bring a giant bag of red chili peppers, you’re able to cook for a long time.

Whenever family visited they’d always bring stuff. We used to have things mailed to us from family, by parcel, by boat. Things from my aunt and my grandmother would send to my mother. And there were Korean food items she wanted to have. The things we treasure the most. That’s what happens when you come to a country when those food items are scarce and you can't always cook what you love.

Zoe: Wow, no Mom, I had no idea that Grandma had to go to those extents. We’re from the Bay Area; we’re from Berkeley. It didn’t even occur to me the extents and lengths Grandma had to go to cook. Before Whole Foods started selling kimchi.

Mom: Yes, before Coscto started selling kimchi.

Zoe: Exactly, that’s amazing.

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Zoe: And how do you find Korean food culture similar and different to these definitions of food culture? Although we do have dishes that are from Korea and have been passed down from generation to generation, like how to make tteok rice cakes and all the unique banchan side dishes like lotus roots that are l​ iterally​ the native flora of Korea.

However, there are still many other dishes that are the products of interactions with other people, like the Chinese. Some of the most iconic Korean dishes are only a couple generations old, but they’re so iconic, they’re what tourists love to eat. What are your thoughts, mom?

Mom: It’s funny, as a child we often eat what our mothers make us and we assume it’s a cultural food from our home country. Definitely, there were quite a lot of dishes that are uniquely Korean. But then later we find out that there are dishes that are not-- they’re from immigrants and they tailored their dishes so that it would fit the Korean people's taste. And so, those are actually not from Koreans. They’re really, um, from people who came into the country. Over all the years, it’s been enjoyed in Korea and it’s now truly Korean. Like jajangmyun, tangsuyuk. It’s really about how Koreans have taken dishes from other people and they’ve made them better in their own ways to fit their palette.

Immigrants, invaders, and other people who have come to the country have really influenced the food in Korea.

Zoe: They’ve made what we know as Korean food what it is today.

Mom: Korean food is really a melange of what is uniquely Korean and what has been adapted from what other people who have come into Korea brought with them.

Zoe: So very true. Alrighty, thanks Mommy.

Mom: Yes, dear, did you get that recording?

Zoe: I sure did.

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