Despite being a fan of Dae Jang Geum when the korean drama took the world by storm a decade ago. I was never a fan of Korean cuisine. There wasn’t a super good reason, just a bias from lack of understanding.
Korea in the 2000s was only just emerging as a business, tourism and culinary destination. And was still broadly in the shadows of Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong cuisine when it came to reputation.
The Dae Jang Geum series shock most of Asian when it came out two decades ago, few people had ever considered Korean cuisine as a culinary option and the series the richness of the cuisine. This was followed by a flurry of opportunistic business people setting up Korean restaurants. High quality Korean restaurants would follow in the decades to come (but not as fast as you think).
Because of that, my knowledge of Korean cuisine before arriving in Seoul was limited to bibimbap, korean ginseng chicken, korean fried chicken and korean barbecues. Tasty of course, but it didn’t sounds super inspiring.
That was until we arrived in Seoul and experienced the wealth of Korean cuisine. Korean cuisine is a reflection of Korea’s complicated history – from its ancient agricultural and nomadic traditions to the Manchurian influence north of the peninsula, the Japanese influence from its centuries of interaction and most recently the American influence since the Cold War.
As wikipedia explains, “Korean cuisine is largely based on rice, vegetables, seafood and (at least in South Korea) meats. Dairy is largely absent from the traditional Korean diet. Traditional Korean meals are named for the number of side dishes (반찬; 飯饌; banchan) that accompany steam-cooked short-grain rice. Kimchi is served at nearly every meal. Commonly used ingredients include sesame oil, doenjang (fermented bean paste), soy sauce, salt, garlic, ginger, gochugaru (pepper flakes), gochujang (fermented red chili paste) and napa cabbage.”
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A window filled with bright colours caught our eye while we were heading away from the Bukchon Hanok village. Despite being rather hungry we turned to check it out.
As luck would have it, we were in the home of Hansik. The building that we had entered was the Hansik Space Eeum (and here) a musuem and a shop focused on Korean Hansik and celebrating the grand masters of Korean food.
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Korean cuisine is not just about dining of course, as a society deeply influenced by Confucianism its cuisine also has a philosophical take.
This is especially apparent for Korean traditional food – also known as Hansik. At the core of Hansik is the concept of Obangsaek (five colours). Ancient koreans identified five colours of food – red, blue, white, black, and yellow. It was believed that food had to be harmonious through the five colours and that each colour improved a different part of your body.
This takes from the yin yang and five forms of traditional chinese/korean medicine (umyang-ohhaeng). Here is a graph from this blogger detailed the benefits of each colour. And you can find this concept throughall all the traditional foods of Korea.
We will learn more about this in subsequent posts.
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The Hansik Space Eeum was set up to celebrate Korean food and culture and its stores do that by highlighting the best of ingredients from all over Korea.
The best Osulloc found in Jeju? Buy it here. The best Hanwoo beef? But it here. The richest soju? Find it here.
And come learn about the what makes Korean food special, while you are buying these top items!
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