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- Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall/NAC |
A Korean meal generally includes rice, vegetables, a wide variety of meat and seafood, and is almost always accompanied by a big bowl of hot soup or stew. Unlike Chinese food which is usually deep-fried, Korean food is usually boiled, blanched, broiled, stir-fried, steamed, or pan-fried with vegetable oil. Thus, Korean food is in general, a low-fat diet.
"When asked about the taste of their food, Koreans eagerly recite the phase Hanguk umsikun saek'om, dalk'om, maek'om hago olk'un, tchabtchal, ssubssul, kkosohan masida: Korean food is pleasingly sour, sweet, hot, burning hot, salty, bitter and nutty. It is a happy marriage of intriguing tastes, often in subtle harmony, sometimes in surprising contrasts."
Sourness (saek'om) derives mainly from grain vinegar, herbs, and certain fruit.
Sweetness (dalk'om) comes from honey, grain syrup, and fruit, like pears and jujubes.
Sweet and spicy hotness (maek'om) is an aggressive exuberance from Korean hot pepper.
Deliciously burning hot (olk'unham) is the ultimate expression of delight for Korean hot pepper aficionados.
Just the right touch of saltiness (tchabtchalham) is from soy sauce or other salty seasonings.
Agreeable bitterness (ssubssulham) comes from ginger, ginseng, berries, seeds, and certain
vegetables and herbs.
Nuttiness (kkosoham) comes from a variety of indigenous nuts and seeds, including pine nuts, chestnuts, walnuts, gingko nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds.
Quintessential Ingredients in Korean Cooking
P'a, manul, and k'ochu (green onions, garlic, and hot peppers). For centuries these ingredients have been a vital part of the Korean kitchen. Most recipes are lost without them. These three quintessential ingredients play many roles: as basic flavorings, as main ingredients for side dishes and garnishes, and as medicine as well.
Essential Korean Sauces
There are three essential Korean sauces - kanjang, toenjang, and koch'ujang (soy sauce, fermented soy bean paste, and hot red pepper paste). They are primarily responsible for the character and unique flavor of Korean food. Traditionally, the sauces were made once a year and stored in a dozen or more large and small earthenware crocks placed on the backyard changdokdae (sauce-crock pad), a standard feature of every traditional Korean home. The basic ingredient for creating these three sauces and pastes is meju, a dried block of fermented soybean paste; Soy sauce is widely used, but toenjang and koch'ujang which are uniquely Korean, are not as well known.
Kimchi
Kimchi is a tasty small side dish, but it is still an integral part of everyday Korean meal. Typically, three or four different kinds of kimchi are offered at every Korean meal. The Korean kitchen used to make more than one hundred kinds of kimchi, using everything from cabbage to watermelon skin and even pumpkin blossoms in summer. Each family's kimchi had its own unique flavor, but the basic process is to salt the vegetable, firming it up by extracting its liquid, locking in the original flavor. A mixture of spices is then introduced and the vegetable is fermented, creating its distinctive character. The most important spices are fresh and powdered hot red peppers, which give kimchi its biting zest and help seal in its freshness, and crushed garlic and green onions, which enhance its flavor and help sterilize it. Additional flavor-builders may include ginger, fruits, nuts, and seafood such as salted shrimp and anchovies, fresh oysters, pollack, yellow corvine, skate, live baby shrimp, or octopus and squid.
Kimchi has a remarkable nutritional value — it’s a great source of protein, vitamins A and B, and is low in calories. According to a 2005 report in Health magazine, Kimchi is considered one of the four healthiest foods, along with soy, yogurt and olive oil. Many believe it can cure any kind of ailment. They love kimchi and even have a kimchi museum in Seuol that displays various plastic kimchi!
Click here for Hi Soo's recipe on Stuffed Cucumber Kimchi
Korean Drinks
With their meals, Koreans drink soju, a vodka-like rice liquor as well as Majuang wine which is commonly made with a blend of Korean and other grapes. Koreans also drink tea which is sometimes brewed with tea leaves, but more commonly with roasted corn, barley or ginseng.
History of Korean Culinary Culture
A distinctive Korean food culture was well developed by the Koryo Dynasty (918 to 1392 AD) in Korea. The Korean dietary pattern remained remarkably stable through the end of the Yi Dynasty in 1910, and at least up until the 1960s (until the foreign invasion by McDonald's, Coca-Cola, KFC, etc.).
One of the most recent cultural exchanges between Korea and Japan took place at the end of the 16th century. Japan took hundreds of Korean potters to Japan to rejuvenate its pottery industry while Korea had a major culinary influence from Japan. At that time, Dutch Catholic priests, who had brought hot red peppers to Japan from South America, introduced them to Korea. While the Japanese used peppers primarily for medicinal purposes, the Koreans added them to their already strident use of garlic and hot Chinese spices.
The Koreans were also highly influenced by the Buddhist Temple food. Temple food is pure vegetarian and its main staples are domestic and wild edibles, mushrooms, herbals, and so on. It followed the Buddhist teaching: "thou shall not kill living animals or fish." Eating garlic and green onions was forbidden because they stimulated carnal desire. Certain plants were said to convert sexual desire into spiritual desire! Therefore, temple kimchi was made only with hot peppers, ginger, and salt, without garlic, green onions, and salted fish. The temple kitchen used natural flavorings: Fermented soybean paste, hot red pepper paste, pyogo mushroom powder, soybean powder, kelp powder, and wild sesame seed powder. Buddhists are fond of saying, "food is medicine" and "soybeans are like meat from the field." Tea culture was highly developed in the Korean temple. |
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