Reader Requests - Food and Ingredients 

areyounice asked for a post about food and their ingredients, so let’s get to it. 

I can’t speak for all of you, but a lot of people I’ve met are turned off Korean food by one food and one food only: kimchi. I’d like to start this one by saying that’s not all we eat, people! I mean, yes. I will concede the fact that a lot of food is spicy. Yes. We Koreans love flavor. Especially the flavor that makes our eyes water. I’ve met only one Korean that dislikes spicy food and it boggled my mind. But moving on.

So let me say something about the Korean diet. A lot of it is vegetarian. Koreans, back in the day, at mainly a vegetarian diet supplemented with seafood. While it’s not the case anymore, a lot of Korean food is based heavily on vegetables and seafood. Korean food also depends on where you live in Korea. It’s a small peninsula, but a lot of people rely on different things to make food. My dad’s side is from an area that’s in North Korea while my mom’s side is from Seoul. Most of the food I eat at home is definitely more Seoul influenced than Northern, although there is a certain Northern flair. The more I grew up, though, certain foods incorporated other cuisines cause my mom would just add flavors not found in Korea. My point being, what ingredients are used also depends on where you’re from and by extension, what you had available to you. 

The way the table’s set up, Koreans eat “family style”. Kinda. Well let me explain a bit more. Every place setting has utensils (usually chopsticks and spoon - get that fork outta here!) a bowl of rice, and in a traditional everyday meal, a bowl of soup or stew. There are special soups for special days, but unless I’m mistaken, there is usually some sort of soup/stew with your bowl of rice. Most everything else is on the table to share. These are usually called 반찬 (banchan). Think of it like tapas combined with family eating. So dim sum? A diagram would be most helpful right now..

Yes, there you go. Kinda. Bibimbab is not usually eaten every meal, so imagine that as a bowl of short grained rice and you’ll get the picture. Oh and before I forget, photo courtesy of koreanclicks.com.

So I’m not going to into detail about all the different foods or list the names of the different dishes, mostly because most people are familiar with them. I doubt there are people who don’t know what 김밥 (Kimbab) is. Or what 갈비 (Galbi) is if they are aware of this blog. Also, that list would be ridiculously long. I mean, think about it, if I asked you to list the typical Italian or American diet and it’s ingredients, that’s a pretty daunting task. There’s no way you could cover everything. So the next best thing I could think of is to point you to a bunch of recipes that I know and love. They have ingredients and how to make them.

• First, for a general overview and a more complete account of Korean cuisine, I’d recommend heading over to koreanrecipes.org.
• koreancooking.xanga.com. Xanga prejudice aside, this is a very good website. Last year, when I was in an apartment for the first time and I had half a jar of kimchi going bad, I had to get rid of it. I found this xanga as a way to find a simple recipe for 김치찌개 (Kimchi Jigae). The website’s great if you’re on a tighter budget than most. It’s no longer updated, but just scroll down the left side of the page and pick out a recipe you want to try out. 
• korean-cuisine.blogspot.com. Another blog. But this one is still being updated and has more recipes. Some of the more popular ones overlap with koreancooking.xanga.com, but the recipes differ slightly. There’s also a Korean Cooking 101 tab that I think you guys might be interested in. 

Those three sites should be a good jumping off point if you want to know more about what kind of ingredients are used and what kind of dishes are made. If you want to learn more, I encourage you to do your own digging and try to find something that you’ve never heard of. For example, I thought eating live octopus was weird until I went to Busan. The trick is to eat it quick so that the suction cups don’t latch in your mouth. 

Oh and one other thing before I forget. Most ingredients can be found at other Asian supermarkets. If you live close to a Chinese or Japanese supermarket, they should have most of the ingredients needed for recipes. And NEVER trust Chinese kimchi. No offense, Chinese people, but your kimchi tastes pretty gross to me. But I suppose that’s a matter of preference more than anything else. 

I sincerely wonder if there are people who read these gigantic posts. Personally I usually think tl;dr when looking at monstrosities like this one, but maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, I hope that sufficiently answered your request, areyounice. If you didn’t think it was any good, let me know. Happy holidays, and see you in the new year, guys!