In praise of the unique Korean food culture

Meanwhile

In praise of the unique Korean food culture

Published: 21 Aug. 2024, 19:57

KIM SEUNG-JUNG
The author is a professor of archaeology at the University of Toronto.

A week has passed since I came to Korea to see my family with my two-year-old daughter. While sharing various meals with my parents, I felt the special meaning of Korean dining culture.

Koreans really love food. From greetings such as “Have you eaten?” and “Let’s have a meal sometime” to the invention of mukbangs — or videos of people eating food — it is hard to find a country with a culture as centered on eating as Korea. As depicted in the Book of Wei of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Korean ancestors ate, drank, sang and danced day by day during a festival, and the large family-oriented social structure in the agricultural society was centered on food.

The core of the Gojoseon (2,333 BC to 108 BC) community was food. Every time people met, they ate together. Food functioned as a glue connecting human relationships. The book “Crying in H Mart” by Korean American author Michelle Zauner was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 60 weeks. Readers of the book can feel motherly love through food.

On the other hand, Western food culture was based on the Christian spirit, which considers gluttony as one of the seven sins. Of course, the ideological foundation is ancient Greek philosophy. The Stoic school of the Hellenistic period is a notable example of the mind. The ancient Greek diet is more about drinking than eating, as meat was only consumed when offered as a sacrifice to gods. A symposium didn’t include dinner and was an all-night drinking party.

Plato, who provided a fundamental foundation for Stoic asceticism, turned the symposium into an intellectual activity discussing the concepts of beauty and eros. In the Hellenistic era, as trade became active and wealthy royal culture developed, Spartan morality regressed overall, and the food culture of the Roman Empire began to develop.

Korea’s food culture is a unique cultural heritage that cannot be compared to other civilizations. This is especially true of fermented soybean paste, red pepper paste and soy sauce, which are the essence of Korea’s unique cuisine.