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KOREA. Owing to the popularity of Korean barbecue (kalbi and pulgogi) outside Korea, Korean cuisine is often thought of as meat-based when compared with other Asian cuisines. However, in essence it has for centuries depended largely on vegetables and, to a lesser degree, on seafood. In fact, the consumption of animal products (beef, pork, chicken, eggs, milk, and dairy products) in Korea increased more than twenty times in the last three decades of the twentieth century, mainly due to economic affluence.

Chinese, Japanese, and Western (particularly American and Italian) influences are becoming increasingly visible, especially outside the home. Yogurt and Western-style sweets have become the staples of Korean children, and American fast-food chains (McDonalds, KFC, and Pizza Hut), particularly popular among the youth, are successively enlarging their share of the Korean restaurant market. Koreans of older generations prefer Chinese restaurants, which have been popular for several decades, to the more recent Japanese and Italian establishments. Chinese food is often cooked at home as well.

Yet, despite all these foreign influences, the daily fare of most Koreans, outside or inside the home, still consists of rice, soup, and side dishes—a meal structure that has barely changed for centuries.

The Korean Meal

There are few differences among the food Koreans consume at each meal. Supper is usually more elaborate than breakfast and lunch, but generally speaking, every meal is centered on plain boiled rice (pap), soup (bouillon-like kuk or a more hearty t'ang), and pickled vegetables (kimchi). Side dishes (panch'an) extend this core, and their number depends on the occasion. Three to five side dishes are the norm in contemporary households.

Stews (tchigae, tchim, chŏn'gol) and soused or sautéed greens (namul, pokkŭm) constitute the majority of side dishes, complemented by grilled dishes (kui or sanjŏk) made of seafood, beef, pork, or chicken. Stews tend to acquire the position of a semi-main dish, as does pulgogi, turning into a center of the meal accompanied by a bowl of rice, smaller panch'an, and dipping sauces. Big-bowl dishes such as fried rice (pokkŭmbap), beef soup with rice (sŏlŏngt'ang), and mixed rice (pibimbap) are served in a similar fashion, with small portions of greens and pickles on the side.

Rice boiled or steamed with beans, other grains, or vegetables may be served instead of plain boiled rice. A variety of wheat and buckwheat noodles (kuksu) also frequently appear on the Korean table. Noodles are usually served in soupy liquids, while stuffed dumplings (mandu) can be either steamed, panfried, or simmered in soups (manduguk). Noodles and dumplings are popular lunch dishes. Flavored rice porridges (chuk) are less commonplace than rice, noodles, and dumplings, but still retain a notable place in Korean cuisine.

Chili pepper, sesame (seed and oil), garlic, and spring onions, along with soy sauce (kanjang), soybean paste (toenjang), and red bean paste (koch'ujang) constitute what might be called a Korean "flavoring principle." The combination of all or a selection of these ingredients gives Korean dishes their characteristic taste. Ginger, semi-sweet rice wine (ch'ŏngju), and honey or sugar are the other crucial components of the Korean flavor.

Kimchi

Pickled vegetables, generally referred to by the name of kimchi, are the most basic, indispensable element of every Korean meal. Neither a feast nor a most meager fare would be complete without it. For centuries kimchi was the sole side dish to accompany the staple of Korea's poor, whether it was barley, millet, or, for the fortunate few, rice. It was also a fundamental meal component in affluent households. Three kinds of kimchi were always served, regardless of how many side dishes were to appear on the table. To a contemporary Korean, rice and kimchi are the defining elements of a minimal acceptable meal. Yet, it is kimchi, not rice, that is regarded as the symbol of Korean culture.

There are hundreds of varieties of kimchi. Every region, village, and even family used to cherish its own special recipe, applying slightly different preparation methods and using slightly different ingredients. Napa cabbage (Brassica chinensis or Brassica pekinensis) made into paech'u kimchi is the most common type, followed by radishes (Raphanus sativus) made into kkaktugi kimchi. Basically, vegetables are placed for several hours in brine, washed with fresh water, and drained. Then, flavorings such as ginger, chili pepper, spring onions, garlic, and raw or fermented seafood are added, and the mixture is packed into pickling crocks and allowed to age.

Since the 1960s, when factory-made kimchi appeared on the market for the first time, the number of urban families who continue to make their own kimchi has gradually diminished. With the rising consumption of meat and seafood, and the popularization of Western-style food, the quantity of kimchi consumed by Koreans has declined as well. An average Korean consumes approximately forty pounds of kimchi on a yearly basis.

Yet, kimchi is still considered to be the most important element of the Korean meal and quintessentially Korean by Koreans and foreigners alike. Despite this cultural symbolism, kimchi has evolved relatively recently to the form we know today. The so-called "white kimchi"(paek kimchi), which is still popular in the early twenty-first century, resembles most closely the original version.

The addition of chili pepper came about in the mid-eighteenth century and gave kimchi its characteristic red color and pungent taste. Fermented seafood (chŏtkal), which has been included in the pickling from the late nineteenth century onward, not only enriched the taste of kimchi, but also increased its regional diversity. While at the end of the seventeenth century only eleven types of kimchi were classified, the regional variety of chŏtkal (some regions use shellfish, others anchovies or other kinds of fish) contributed to the development of several hundred varieties of kimchi. The type of vegetables that are pickled also changed. Gourd melon, cucumber, and eggplant have been used since ancient times; today napa cabbage and radish are the most common varieties.

The Table Setting

With a few exceptions, all components of the meal are on the table at one time. A set of a spoon and metal chop-sticks is used while eating. Rice, soup, and other liquids are eaten with the former, side dishes with the latter. Soup and rice are served in individual bowls, but side dishes are often shared by more than one diner. Nowadays, bowls are usually made of stoneware, steel, or plastic, but for special occasions white porcelain tableware is used. In the past, the upper classes dined from brass bowls in the winter and porcelain ones during the hot summer months. A silver set of chopsticks and a spoon was considered most elegant. Less affluent sections of the population generally dined from earthenware, using wooden chopsticks and spoons. According to Korean etiquette, it is considered inelegant to lift bowls from the table. They stay on the table during the entire meal, unlike in the rest of East Asia, where it is customary to lift bowls up to the mouth while eating.

The majority of restaurants in Korea have two dining areas: one with Western-style tables and chairs, and one with an elevated floor where customers seated on cushions dine at low tables. Similarly, most Korean households use Western-style tables with chairs on a daily basis (the table is usually placed in the kitchen), but share meals at a low table with short legs, seated on cushions laid on the floor, when guests are entertained.

The most traditional dining setting is a small table designed for one or two persons. In upper-class households, there was no common dining room and such tables were laid in the kitchen and carried out to different parts of the house, where family members dined, divided according to age, gender, and position. Such dining arrangements reflected the hierarchical ideology of premodern Korea. The shared dining table with short legs became popular in the early decades of the twentieth century and by the 1960s spread all over the country, widely replacing the ubiquitous individual table. This transition was followed by the diffusion of Western-style table and chairs in the 1980s. Yet, even today, traditional tables designed for one are still used in some restaurants, student apartments, and average Korean households.

Food and Drink for Special Occasions

From the fifteenth century onward, Confucianism began to replace Buddhism as the strongest cultural influence in Korea. Various festivals and their celebration in Korea are closely related either to Buddhism or to Confucianism. These events are always marked by special food, with noodles, red beans, and many kinds of rice cakes playing a prominent role in festive meals and snacks. Because Korean meals traditionally did not include desserts, festivals were among the few occasions when sweet snacks were served, except in upper-class families, where sweet afternoon snacks were regularly prepared.

Throughout the ages, each festival food has acquired a symbolic meaning or a function that justifies its use at a specific occasion. Noodles, for example, are appropriate for birthdays because they symbolize long life. Red-bean porridge (p'atchuk) with sweet rice balls (kyŏngdan) eaten on the day of the winter solstice is said to prevent colds and drive away ghosts. Colorful rice cake (mujigae ttŏk) is prepared for a child's first birthday in the hope that the child will enjoy a wide range of accomplishments.

Certain occasions are inseparable from the food that is served during their celebration. The Harvest Moon Festival (Ch'usŏk), for example, is unimaginable without pine needle–scented rice cakes (songp'yŏn), and lunar New Year's Day celebrations (Sŏllal) would not be complete without rice cake soup (ttŏkkuk). "How many bowls of rice cake soup have you eaten?" is a polite way of asking about someone's age, as if failing to eat a bowl of rice cake soup would deprive a person from a complete New Year's experience.

Garnishing (komyŏng) is taken very seriously in traditional Korean cooking and becomes especially pronounced in festival food. Three-color garnish is made with egg yolk (yellow), egg white (white), and Korean watercress (green). Five-color garnish includes these with the addition of chili pepper threads (red) and stone-ear mushrooms (black).

Drinks are another medium used to celebrate special occasions. Porich'a, scorched-rice tea made by boiling water over the rice that sticks to the bottom of the cooking pot, used to be the most important daily beverage in Korea. Today, along with water, it remains an important drink to accompany meals. For celebrations, most Koreans drink either soju or beer. Soju is a kind of distilled liquor made of grain or sweet potatoes, with an alcohol content of up to 45 percent. Although it is often claimed to have been introduced to Korea in the thirteenth century through trade with the Mongols and Chinese, it is not clear whether the contemporary version has any connection with its ancestor apart from the name. Beer was introduced by the Japanese in the late nineteenth century and began to be produced on a large scale in the early 1930s.

A large variety of homemade wines (which are strictly speaking ales) flavored with ginseng, pine needles, chrysanthemum, cherry, plum, or apricot blossoms, herbs, and fruits were popular before the turn of the twentieth century. The ban on homemade wines during the Japanese colonial period (1910–1945) had a devastating effect on this part of the Korean tradition. The use of rice for wine making continued to be prohibited after the liberation, due to the shortage of rice. The ban on rice wine was lifted in 1971, and various efforts have been undertaken since to revive local wine making in Korea. In 1985, for example, the government designated many traditional wines as cultural assets. Makkŏlli, a milky rice wine with an alcohol content of 6 to 8 percent, also known under the name "farmer's wine" (nongju), is one of the most popular alcoholic drinks in contemporary Korea.

Alcohol is never drunk in Korea without elaborate snacking. Practically all side dishes can be served for this purpose and are called anju at such occasions. Anju can be small like French hors d'oeuvres or Spanish tapas but are not always small. Stews and large savory pancakes (chŏn), including vegetables, meat, and seafood, are typical snacks to accompany drinking.

The Historical Overview

The foundation of Korean cuisine was formed between the seventh and thirteenth centuries, with important modifications taking place in the eighteen and nineteenth centuries. As was the case with other aspects of Korean culture, Korean cuisine developed under the strong influence of its powerful neighbor—China. As in adjoining regions of East Asia, rice and fermented soybean products (soy sauce, soybean paste, and soybean curd) occupy a prominent place in the diet of the Korean people. The "rice–soup–side dishes" structure of the meal and the use of chopsticks to consume it are other indicators of the impact that Chinese civilization exerted on Korean food-ways. The emphasis on five elements in Korean cuisine, for example, five flavors (salty, sweet, sour, hot, and bitter) and five colors of garnish, has Chinese origins as well. It should be emphasized, however, that despite this heritage, Korean cuisine has developed into a distinctive entity of its own, with more differences from Chinese cuisine than similarities to it.

The technology of rice cultivation was brought to the northern parts of the Korean peninsula from China, probably late in the second millennium B.C.E., but rice became a staple of the Korean diet only in the Silla period (668–935 C.E.). In fact, before the second half of the twentieth century, rice was not a staple for everyone, but was rather a symbol of wealth. The old phrase "white rice with meat soup," for example, connotes the good life, while tacitly acknowledging that not everyone could afford either rice or meat. Millet, barley, and buckwheat accompanied by kimchi and vegetable soup were the daily fare of the majority of the Korean population.

Vegetarian Buddhist influences in Korea did not, apart from the clergy, have much impact on food habits. Beef, pork, lamb, chicken, and various types of game were regularly consumed by the Korean upper classes. Still, before the economic growth of the 1970s, the eating of meat was a luxury for the common people in Korea. Farmers, who formed the majority of the Korean population, rarely ate meat except for three days in summer when dog stew was served and a special day in winter when sparrow, wild boar, or wild rabbit was prepared. In both cases, the eating of meat was intended to strengthen physical resistance to extreme weather conditions (Walraven, 2002).

The techniques for making wine and chang (a semi-liquid predecessor of soy sauce and soybean paste) were also introduced from China, and by the seventh century were already highly advanced. This was also the time when fermented seafood (chŏtkal) developed, along with vegetables preserved in salt. The latter eventually evolved into kimchi pickles.

Chili pepper was brought to Korea at the end of the sixteenth century, most probably via Japan. It became widely cultivated a century later and by the twentieth century was an integral part of Korean cuisine. As well as being an indispensable component in kimchi making, chili pepper contributes to the flavoring of the majority of Korean dishes through chili pepper powder (koch'u karu) and red bean paste (koch'ujang). Both are not only used extensively in the kitchen but often appear on the table as a relish.

It should be mentioned that the extensive use of chili pepper, and consequently the pungent taste of Korean cooking, was not originally characteristic of all Korea, but rather a feature of the Kyŏngsang province occupying the southeastern part of the peninsula. The diet of the southwestern provinces and the territory covering contemporary North Korea used to feature less spicy dishes than was the case in Kyŏngsang. Urbanization and the development of modern transport and communication networks led to the gradual decline of regional differences in the Korean diet. These differences, however, have by no means completely disappeared. Ch'ŏrwŏn, for example, is famous for makkŏlli wine, Ch'unch'ŏn for its chicken barbecue (talkkalbi), and Hamhung province for its cold noodles (naengmyŏn). The cooking of the southwestern provinces tends to be generally less spicy than the rest of the country. Chŏlla province, in particular, tenaciously retains its culinary distinctiveness.

Along with a gradual decline in regional differences and the democratization of the Korean foodways, the twentieth century marked the time of the modernization of production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food in Korea. This started during the Japanese occupation and continued in South Korea after the Korean War (1950–1953).

The Japanese introduced modern farming techniques and Western-style food processing. The railway system and the highway network erected by the colonizer led to the centralization of markets and modernization of retailing. Japanese and Korean physicians created the foundation of Korean dietetics, and affluent Korean women got acquainted with the Western science of nutrition through Western-inspired Japanese home economics education.

After the Korean War, South Korea continued to modernize under the strong influence of the United States. American dietary influences have become particularly visible since the 1980s but have not been widely welcome. While foreign products are desirable for the status and novelty they impart, the Korean people generally disapprove of the country's growing reliance on food imports (Pemberton, 2002; Bak, 1997). The increasing consumption of meat, for example, led to a rise in the number of livestock in Korea, making this mountainous country with almost no pasture largely dependent on imported feedstuffs. This and similar issues play an important role in the dietary consciousness of the Korean population today.

See also China; Condiments; Fermented Beverages Other than Wine or Beer; Places of Consumption; Rice; Soup; Southeast Asia; Soy; Wine, Nongrape.

Katarzyna J. Cwiertka