A Recap of 2012

The food trends in 2012 seemed to focus on bread and coffee. There were numerous western cafes and waffle shops that opened. Bread and dessert shops were big money makers as well. Artisan Italian pizza was all the rage with places like La Buzza and Pizza di Trevi which often had long queues to get in and are now opening up new shops. Mexican-Korean fusion was also popular as Vatos restaurant in Itaewon expanded and has now started opening shops in department stores. Pies were still popular as the shop Tartine sold their one-millionth pie after 5 years in business. Jesters pies (savory meat pies) opened franchises throughout Korea. On the drinks front, Dutch Coffee became very popular this year because many Koreans learned that its lack of caffeine made it a healthier option to coffee. During the summer, fresh squeezed lemonade could be found on almost every corner and every store (partly due the cheaper price of U.S.A lemons). Let’s see if this will continue into next year.

Looking Ahead to 2013

So looking ahead to 2013, what do I think will be popular? Well first of all Schneeballen is the new hot item. The doughy cake balls with many flavors have been spotted on popular streets, department stores and there is even one opening in a prime Hongdae area. I feel that this will be popular food boom and later a bust, for the treats are hard to share and are too sweet. Plus they are too similar to cheap Korea snacks that are just pressed together and coated with frosting.

I feel gourmet sandwich shops will become more popular and the sandwiches will increase in size as many Koreans have changed their thinking that a sandwich is not just a snack but can be a meal.

Decaffeinated coffee will be more popular this year as many patrons seek healthier options. This has already started at many chains. Bubble tea cafes will open around the country. Also there will be more teahouses as Koreans look for different venues to sit to have conversation with friends.
This year, I believe more standing restaurants, cafes, and take-out lunch box restaurants will open and serve gourmet foods. Unlike in other parts of the world, a food truck is quite burdensome for business owners in Korea because of high gas and parking fees. Plus, most of the prime foot-traffic areas are already claimed by food carts. These smaller eateries will focus on creating a long queue in order to generate buzz. I think these restaurants will start to offer more rice and noodle shops that have healthy options.

I believe that this year you’ll see a lot more squid at restaurants throughout Korea. There is a global surplus of squid throughout Korea and I think restaurants will start to incorporate this dish into many recipes.

In prime tourist areas I believe that more breakfast restaurants, noodle shops, and cafes will start opening earlier at 7am (most places in Korea don’t open until 10 or 11am) to feed the increasing number of tourists looking for early morning meals.

Western holidays have been a boon for stores and restaurants. Koreans are spending more on gifts and now many of the end-of-year parties have a Christmas Theme.

The arts’ university of Hongdae always has I sights into emerging foods that will later filter to other parts of the country. These days the shift seems to be to Korean food items that are good for the skin. In Hongdae I have recently seen three Jokbal, marinated and glazed pig feet, in prime locations. Part of this trend might be attributed to then lower costs of imported pork. But it could also because Hongdae is a very popular club area so students are looking for alternatives to barbecue so they won’t smell like their meal when they go out for the evening. I believe that dakbal (spicy chicken feet) will also be more popular in these areas as well since it is believe the collagen is good for skin.

So what do I think will not be popular in 2013? Pepero. I think their time for the chocolate dipped biscuit has passed and the increased number of snacks along with the increased marketing for Halloween and Christmas (Pepero Day is November 11th) make this treat an after thought. Western Thanksgiving  (with turkey) will not be as popular especially with the marketing emphasis on Korean thanksgiving and other western holidays. Sweet potato cafes will probably not do well either since most patrons prefer to have the potatoes simply roasted or steamed instead of heavily processed.

Sadly, I believe more gourmet restaurants offering to do high-end Korean cuisine will close or change their concepts. The celebrated Jungsikdang, which just received their first Michelin star in New York City, will be moving from their current location in Apgujeong and I heard from their chef that their concept will change. Other restaurants such as Sandang, O’neul, and Poom I have heard have trouble with bookings from Koreans and their main patrons are tourists. It is very difficult for these restaurants to survive in Korea without significant Korean patronage.

Also, I sense a Korean shift in thought about Korean corporate franchise shops and restaurants. In the last year major corporate-run bakeries, cafes, and restaurants have been bad press about how they have pushed many independent shops to closure. The government has taken measures to protect small businesses so I feel there will be a reassurance of small independent restaurants and chains.

Daniel Gray is a Korean adoptee that returned to Korean in 2005 in order to search for his birth mother and to learn about Korean culture. He started a restaurant review blog in 2007, www.seouleats.com, that became a local and international hit. He and his blog has been featured in the New York Times, Monocle Magazine, The Kimchi Chronicles, Bizarre Foods, Rudy Maxa, Olive Magazine, Euronews and many more publications and media. He works at O’ngo Food Communications (www.ongofood.com), which is a culinary tourism company that offers Korean cooking classes and restaurant tours to travelers. Their food tours and cooking classes are ranked as one of the top attractions in Seoul according to tripadvisor. Daniel is an accomplished writer and is the food columnist for Seoul Magazine and Walkerhill Magazine. He has contributed to Time Out Seoul, The Seoul Book of Everthing, and he wrote, “The Illustrated, “How to Eat” Korean Food Comic” and it’s follow-up “Say Kimchi! Korean Food Comic.” You can find the full report on food trends in Korea in his digital book at the itunes bookstore at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/korea-food-trend-report-2012/id574343410?ls=1

Photo Attributions Schneeballen Picture by Kara Brugman http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyperbolation/

Other photos by Daniel Gray

Luckily, Korea is the country that never sleeps. Many restaurants and bars don’t even start getting busy until 7 or 8pm and they will often stay open until 2,3 or even 5am. There are some restaurants that stay open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. These often specialize in hangover soup restaurants (one of the cures for hangovers is to be plied with more alcohol). Suffice it to say, last calls for drinks in Korea are almost non-existent.

Now I am not writing about the need for temperance in Korean society because dining and drinking is a very important part of Korean culture. Koreans are social drinkers and they will often go to restaurants and bars to have alcohol with food. The food comes out tapas-style with several different side dishes called banchan. The food is shared and guests make sure to pour drinks for their friends at their table. It is customary in Korea to not dine or drink alone

A night of drinking often has several stages. Usually there are three stages but a good night out might call for more such as a visit to a karaoke room for some singing and dancing. Most often the first stage is often a stop at a Korean barbecue house to have sizzling slabs of pork belly with cooling shots of clear alcohol called Soju. Second round is usually something fried such as fried chicken with pitchers of beer. Third round is usually a tent restaurant called a pojangmacha. These no-frills tents are intimate settings that are great for conversations and drinking games. The food here can range from stir-fried chicken gizzards, spicy chicken feet, grilled fish, stews, or delicious onion and carrot rolled egg omelette called gyeran mari.

Of course just eating and drinking can get a bit boring. Luckily, Koreans are natural conservationists (remember the point of eating and drinking is to develop friendships). When lulls in conversations occur, people play games such as 3,6,9 (sam, yook, goo). To play this game friends count out numbers and every time there is a 3,6, or 9 (not multiples of 3) the contestants have to clap. If a person forgets to clap or says the incorrect number, they have to drink. In the game 5 questions, each person holds up their hands. Friends take turns asking questions such as, “anyone wearing glasses” or something more personal such as “anyone that has kissed another person at the table.” If the question applies to a person, they have to put their finger down. If all of their fingers are down, they have to drink.

By the end of these rounds of eating and drinking, people might get a bit drunk. If a person seems to not be able to drink more, that person can ask for a “white knight.” This person will drink in place of that other person in exchange for a favor in the future.

If the night is going very well friends often convene to singing rooms where they can bout their favorite pop songs and ballads and dance.

Again, drinking in Korea is not about getting drunk but about developing friendships. After a night, friends make sure they get home safely via public transport, taxi, or a car pickup service that a person will come take the inebriated person and their car home.

Molecular gastronomy has been in vogue since the mid-2000s and has joined the ranks of other trends like ‘buy local’ and ‘farm-to-table’.  Whereas modern cuisine relied on the flavours of the ingredients and the technical skills of the chef, this has changed as molecular gastronomy cooks have increasingly focused on the scientific reactions involved in these cooking techniques, which caused a negative reaction to this exclusive focus on science, with many cooks wanting to return to natural techniques, claiming that people’s local environment is very important to them, and this counter-movement was the basis of the farm-to-table trend.

So, what’s the next up-and-coming hot trend that we will see in cooking?

It’s fermentation. Since molecular gastronomy started being trendy, there has been an active exchange between chefs and scientists, and this information isn’t very difficult for cooks to access anymore. As farm-to-table has become trendy, chefs have planted their own gardens next to their restaurants to grow ingredients, and it has become very common to buy locally and use ingredients that are produced in the local area. Cooks have been increasingly conscious of carbon emissions, and while looking for recipes that can minimize carbon emissions, they realized that fermented food could be the answer.

Through molecular gastronomy, chefs who have become very familiar with science, and as they gain more awareness of the new flavours of fermented foods, they are making use of these flavours in combination with that science.

Through molecular gastronomy, chefs who have become very familiar with science, and as they gain more awareness of the new flavours of fermented foods, they are making use of these flavours in combination with that science.

Fermentation techniques are already being used in the production of a variety of foods. Traditional fermentation methods have long been used in making foods like cheese, jamón (a Spanish dry-cured ham), wine, bread, and so on, but fermentation has entered the spotlight more recently because of its ability to enhance the flavour of foods.

In addition, the fermentation of beans and other vegetables, which is somewhat uncommon in European food culture, has been receiving a lot of attention. Cooks have been discovering that the isomers resulting from fermentation produce a variety of flavours which enhance the taste of foods. Many chefs, and most notably some that are world-famous, have started taking an interest in fermentation.

Founder of Nordic Food Lab, René Redzepi, whose restaurant Noma (Denmark) was ranked in the top spot on the 2012 list of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants (http://www.theworlds50best.com), succeeded in making his own fermented soybean paste using beans grown in Denmark, without the use of aspergillus oryzae (a fungus used in fermenting soybeans in Asian cuisine). Andoni Luis Aduriz, the chef at Mugaritz (Spain), which got third spot on the list, has been working a lot recently with fermenting cod. And Alex Atala from D.O.M. (Brazil), the fourth-ranked restaurant on the list, uses lacto fermentation with ingredients produced in the Amazon to make dishes for the restaurant. These chefs have all included ‘fermentation’ as a buzzword at the beginning of their presentations at the international gastronomy congress.

Chef David Chang of Momofuku, who has become very popular in New York City with his combination of Korean and Western cuisine, was invited to participate in Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter at Harvard University in Boston, where he introduced the fermented food he makes at his restaurant.

Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to the Science of Soft Matter is one of the regular lecture series offered by Harvard Science Center at Harvard University. It features lectures about how cooking and science are related and about developments in contemporary cuisine. These lectures are given by world-famous top chefs, scientists, and food experts. Following the lectures, they have open discussions with attendees. Notable lecturers have included scientists from Foundation Alicia (http://www.alicia.cat) and Harold McGee, as well as world-famous chefs like Ferran Adrià, José Andrés, Joan Roca, Carma Ruscalleda , Wylie Dufresne, and Dan Barber. The lectures are offered for Harvard University students, but they are open to the general public every Monday and have been generating a lot of positive buzz.

In his lecture, Chef David Chang explained how cooks are trying fermentation as a new technique to make food more flavourful, and he also said that he can understand why Roberto Kolter (professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School) believes “the future of food is microbiology”.

Fermentation Has New Disciples

Fermentation is not contrary to the use of locally-grown ingredients. Drying, fermenting, salting, and pickling methods have always been used mainly to keep food from spoiling, but ingredients are also reborn through these processes with new flavors, without losing their original tastes and aromas.

For example, fresh milk has its own fresh taste, and cheese that is fermented over a long period has its own unique delicious taste. In this way, milk is reborn through the work of microorganisms over time.

Without fermentation.. Korean food cannot exist. 

Looking at any Korean dining table, it is certainly clear that fermented food accounts for a  large proportion of the dishes, testifying to how important fermentation is in this culinary tradition. Indeed, how can we talk about Korean dining table without mentioning kimchi, dwenjang jjigae (soybean paste stew), jeotgal (salted seafood used for seasoning), jang (flavoring pastes and sauces), and makgeoli (rice wine)?

Most Korean side dishes are either fermented themselves or include fermented jang to enhance the flavor. Additionally, vinegar, alcoholic beverages, and jocheong (thick sweet maltose syrup) are all produced by fermenting grains. The deep and refreshing taste of dwenjang jjigae made by Korean housewives and the refreshing taste of kimchi both result from fermentation. Now, chefs in other countries are paying attention to the taste of fermented foods, which Korean people take for granted.

Korean people, however, are so accustomed to the taste of fermented foods that they tend not to realize the benefits they derive through fermentation and not to value it highly enough.

Head Chef Jaume Biarnés of Foundation Alicia, a food research institute in Spain, saw dwenjang jjigae being made when he visited Korea. “It only took 10 minutes to make dwenjang jjigae,” he said, “but when I tasted it, I felt it was very similar to the food my grandmother used to make with pork broth she boiled for 12 hours. Also in Spanish cuisine, people cook for a very long time in order to create rich and deep flavour, but it was very surprising to see that food with the same depth of flavour can be made this fast. I think that’s because it took a long time to make the dwenjang. And when I used some jang in my vegetable dishes, it created a deep and various flavour, so I felt that’s why there are so many vegetable dishes in Korea.”

If the characteristics of food culture can be explained simply, Japanese food is about knives and Chinese food is about fire. As for Korea, it is fermentation, which is indispensable on the dining table, that can be said to be the basis of Korean cuisine. People around the world are paying attention to the taste of fermented food, which is so familiar to Koreans and the source of traditional Korean flavour.

I recently met with a European patissier who is currently living in Korea. He has been here in Korea for three years now, and I was curious to know if he’d had experienced any inconvenience with regard to food. I asked where he bought his bread, and he talked about the shops he most often visits

The bread shops he mentioned all had one thing in common: none of them deal with bread that emphasizes the sweetness that Korean people seem to like. Instead, they produce bread that is suitable for eating with a meal – breads with a robust, nutty taste and breads made with whole grains

For most Koreans, who are used to food culture in which rice is central, bread is considered a snack, and consequently, the baked goods that have gained popularity in this market are baked buns with red bean or meat fillings, or those with prominent sweetness or saltiness. In contrast, wheat has a longer history in Western food culture, and so naturally, Westerners are more likely to buy things like light-tasting and nutty baguettes and rye bread that can go with ham, cheese, spreads, or just butter.

However, our food culture in Korea has been gradually changing, and now bread can be both a snack as well as a central part of a meal. It was only recently that bread started to sometimes be served in place of rice on the Korean table. As more and more people return to Korea after studying or traveling overseas, the breakfast table is gradually being simplified from the traditional soup and rice to fruit and bread with jam or other spreads. This change is also due in part to another social phenomenon: the increasing number of double-income couples. So, there is greater demand for bread that is suitable for the main part of a meal. As bread takes on this role and demand increases, shops having been springing up over the last five years. Whenever you think of Korean bakeries, soboro bread (buns with streusel topping) and buns filled with red bean paste probably spring to mind. But recently, you can also find a section of your local bakery dedicated to ciabatta, baguettes, and rye breads. And a growing number of bakeries is carrying these kinds of products. From the German-style bakery ‘Ach So’, long a favorite among foreigners, to Hongdae, Sinsa-dong, and Nonhyeon-dong, this new generation of bakeries is spreading. So now, it is quite possible to have delicious European-style bread in Seoul.

- Itaewon, Hannam-dong

Ach so!, a German-style bakery famous for its Brötchen and Roggenbrot, is run shop-in-shop with Blüte, a florist. They have reduced the variety of bread they offer, but by adding a menu of various dishes, they have transformed into a wonderful place for brunch.

Maybell Bakery has opened a second branch as well as Maybell Bakery L’atelier, focusing mainly on whole-wheat, rye, and sourdough breads. Foreigners account for more than half of their loyal daily customers.Last but not least, Baker’s Table has recently become the hottest bakery in the Kyeongridan Street area. They have a good selection of caraway-flavored rye bread, English muffins, hearty breads, hard rolls, and multigrain breads. They also have one item on their brunch menu that is extremely popular: bratwurst with sauerkraut and wedge potatoes

- Sangsu, Hapjeong

The Hongdae area, encompassing Sangsu and Hapjeong-dong, has recently emerged as a Mecca of bakeries. Here, there are a couple of bakeries in particular that have garnered a loyal following: Publique and October.

Publique features a wide assortment of authentic French breads, including their most popular items, pain de Publique and pain de seigle, as well as a range of breads made with organic flour and natural sourdough starter.

At October, roughly 80% of the baked goods are made without eggs, butter, or sugar. Two of their most representative items are cereal and rice cheese baguette.

If you are looking for ciabatta or white baguettes that are a little softer and have a richer flavour, try Paul & Paulina.

- Sinsa-dong, Nonhyeon-dong

In this area, finding a decent bakery is no mean feat, but there is one place which has long been a mainstay. The bakery in question is Pain de Papa (meaning ‘Dad’s bread’), and the special affection they have for their raw materials shows in the fact they have their own on-site flour mill on which they grind their own flour. They offer not only such basic items as ciabatta and focaccia, but also baguettes naturally sweetened with squash or sweet potato.

Retro Oven is a small bakery in Nonhyeon-dong with a big reputation for delicious croissants made with Laugen (a type of German dough commonly used for pretzels). Along with olive ciabatta and scones, these croissants are among the most popular items at Retro Oven, so there are always lots of pre-orders for them.

Chua Lam, referred to as ‘Hong Kong’s God of Cookery’ and a world famous food critic, paid a visit to Seoul in June, 2011. Chua Lam, who is a fan of Korean food, has written over 100 books on cooking. While here, he visited a Korean restaurant and, after tasting various Korean dishes including samgyetang, galbijim and traditional medicinal foods, gave a speech at the Korea Tourism Organization on the tastes of Korean cuisine.

He says. “Galbijim, seafood dishes, bibimbab and mul-naengmyeon (buckwheat noodles, similar to Japanese ‘soba’, in chilled broth) and Korean street snacks can be popular with Chinese visitors to Korea.“

“One of my favorites is bulgogi. When it’s being cooked the meat juices gather around the edge of the grill and it’s so delicious scooped up and mixed with rice. For a while now I’ve also been enjoying makgeolli, a Korean rice wine delicacy with a long history, which I think is the best alcoholic beverage, because this fermented drink is easy to digest and nutritious. Some other Korean delights that are difficult to find anywhere else are Korean wild eel and sea eel and, for a regional experience, Jeju abalone and Busan pufferfish.”

With all the talk over the years about the issue of Korean Food Globalization, the new issue seems to be over side dishes or known as banchan. Sides have been drawn and there are those that believe that the side dishes should remain complementary and others that believe they should be charged for- therefore adding value to the meal. Before diving into the issue, I think we should (and I think we always should try to look at it from an outsider’s perspective).

As a person that works in the food and tourism industry, our company meets hundreds of tourists each month as we introduce them to Korean food. We get many international clients, for example on the last tour we had an American, a German, two New Zealanders, and three Singaporeans. Each of them had different ideas of “service” and “cuisine” but the most interesting perspective was that of “value.”

Of course, I am not trying to stereotype any of these clients- this is just an observation I had. Our German client was fascinated with the sauce that we got with our tofu and kimchi dish. After she finished the sauce, I offered to get more sauce for her, she kept refusing and then asked, “if it is not too expensive, that’s fine- I’ll take more.” I told her that there is not a charge for extra sauce. My American and New Zealand clients said, “Really? Then…we’ll take some more too. It is sooo good. I could just eat the sauce.” The waitress came from kitchen and refilled everyone’s sauce at the table and everyone thanked her profusely. Afterwards, I noticed that the Americans had slipped 2,000 won under their cups as a tip. Hmmm…if my guests place so much value on sauce, then I think the value on banchan would be much higher.

At the barbecue restaurant we went to, several of my guests was in love with the macaroni salad. Of course, this was not a traditional side dish, but they ate 2 bowls of it before the server realized it. She then came around and gave everyone at the table their own individual bowl of macaroni salad. Everyone was tremendously impressed and afterwards each guest left a 1000 won tip for the server. Of course, I had told them that it is not common to tip in Korea, but they did so regardless. After we had left, the server that gave us the macaroni salad chased after us with the money in her hands. She pleaded with me to take it back. I told her it was a gift, but she still wouldn’t take the money. I explained to her that my guests were so impressed with her service, that it was a tip. A tip was a foreign concept for her. She asked us to wait one moment. She ran back into the restaurant and came back with a bottle of cola for each of my guests-the coke worth more than the money we left her. We had to accept this and we were off.

This is not the first time, I have had this happen. On rainy days, I often will tip a taxi driver some extra money as a thank you for picking me up. Taxi drivers will refuse and some have even scolded me for offering the money. Many Koreans feel the money is a bribe and only the unscrupulous would take it.

Korean perceptions of “service” must change and not just in the restaurants. Korean people work so hard and yet many of them feel that more work is the reward. A famous restaurant is often the restaurant that is the busiest. The make money from quantity versus quality. Often these are restaurants that have to maintain a breakneck pace that are almost like an assembly line. Koreans love the ideas of “fast” and “completion.” In the hospitality industry, these are important elements but so is friendliness, environment, and “service.” I quote service here, for the concept for service in many cultures is different from that in Korea. “Service” in Korea means that you get your food and you get more food- often in the form of higher value side-dishes such as broiled fish or crab. Service does not mean that the waiter is polite and attentive or predicts a need you might have such as extra tissues if you drop something on your pants or water if it looks like you ate something spicy. “Servers” in Korea are often thought of as deliverers of food and not much else. Korean people go to eat with their friends to build up connections with those sitting at the table and they wouldn’t want to be interrupted by the “service.”

I grew up working in the hospitality industry in America where service was valued. People would tip based on how friendly, polite, knowledgable, earnest, and interesting the server was. The server was a representative of the restaurant, therefore, part of the show. Customers can eat anywhere, but they go to restaurants for the experience and entertainment- two other things that Korean restaurants also tremendously undervalue.

From my observations, I feel that Korean people place value on “quantity.” They place value on being full, both mentally and physically. They often feel that more food there is to see, the more important they feel. Many Korean people feel that it is the restaurant’s “noblesse oblige” to offer vast quantities of food with complementary refills for little money. I believe that this perception is the cause of many excellent Korean restaurants closing and being replaced with high margin eateries such as cafes and fast food establishments.

Let’s look at the restaurant Myeongdong Gyoza. This is the quintessential example of a well-oiled, efficient restaurant in Korea. This restaurant is famous for their dumplings and knife-cut noodle soup.  There are two locations in Myeongdong (and many, many imitators). There is always a line out the door. Once you sit down, you must order and pay. The food then arrives minutes later. They offer blistering spicy kimchi, a mint, and a little side of rice as the side dishes and nothing else. The cost per bowl is 8,000 won- more expensive than any other knife-cut noodle place in Korea. It seems like a success, but the value based on quantity is not lost. If a customer eats all of the noodles in their bowl, the servers will come over and refill their bowl, again, value being placed on being full rather than the delicious broth, excellent noodles, and handmade dumplings. I mean does the restaurant really need to give complementary “service” to give their diner’s a excellent dining experience?

I don’t think so.

If we want to maintain Korean food culture, than we need to value it properly. Food should be valued. The farmers who make it and the people that prepare it should be respected. We should not just gorge ourselves and pay a pittance for what it is worth. Each small side dish on a Korean table takes time to prepare and they should be valued. If we do not show respect to our cuisine, there will only be high-margin restaurants, fast food eateries, and cafes. Good, healthy Korean restaurants will be choked out by rising food prices, high rent, and high labor.

“Aeri Lee is a young Korean mom who has a half-Korean half-American son. With a passion for cooking and teaching, she has shared Korean recipes and language lessons on her blog aeriskitchen.com and her YouTube channel since 2008. She is surprised that so many people around the world like Korean food and culture and she feel honored to share her heritage with them.”

It’s been difficult organizing the chaos in my brain. Memories of my experience in Seoul race through my head and I want to tell every story simultaneously. (Navigating a labyrinth of food stalls and restaurants on the O’ngo Food Tour. Trying Buddhist-inspired cuisine at Nwijo. Assembling towers of Bulgolgi at a cooking class. Absorbing the kinetic energy of Hongdae in my free time.) And when I have taken on the challenge of summing up Seoul for friends and family—albeit in 5 minutes or less–it’s pretty much been a mini-disaster in miscommunication. In my head I’ve woven an enchanting tale of gastronomic romance served beautifully course-by-course. In reality? I’ve just thrown an overwhelming buffet of banchan in their faces leaving my audience feeling confused and abused.

So how do you deal with a stream of consciousness that’s out of control? You make a highly edited “home movie” of your adventures set to pop music!

Click here to view the embedded video.

{Photos and clips provided by PlanetCerritosBlog; music is “How I Roll” by Britney Spears}

And there you have it. Rather than starting with individual pieces of the Seoul puzzle, I got the ball rolling with the entire picture of my eclectic foodie voyage. Hopefully as the weeks go on I’ll get to delve into each experience and makes sense of it all—just like I did with the subway system!

Kamsahamnida Seoul. Kamsahamnida Korean Tourism Organization (KTO). You have all been so gracious. And this was truly a trip of a lifetime.

Tour a Korean traditional market and you can’t help but see red: big piles of chilies stacked up, waiting to be dried and ground; tub after tub after tub of chili-flaked kimchi and seasoned side dishes…. But it’s the bright hues of the bibim naengmyeon (mixed buckwheat noodles) and the simmering jjigae (stews) at the food stands that really get my taste buds firing. Gochukaru (red pepper powder) may heat things up, but it’s gochujang (fermented red pepper paste) that adds depth – a spicy tang, a sweet saltiness that is a mainstay of Korean cuisine.

Red peppers came onto the peninsula about the same time as the Japanese did in the 1550s, but it wasn’t until mid-Joseon Dynasty in the 1700s that gochujang emerged as a primary flavor in Korean cooking. Traditionally a mix of fermented soybeans (or meju, a fermented, dried soybean brick), glutinous rice, chili powder and other ingredients like malt or barley, gochujang is laborious to make. Each home cook has her own proportions and preferences, but it usually involves a lot of boiling, straining, sitting over night and stirring. After the paste is put in a special clay pot with air holes, it’s aged and rotated in the sun for weeks to months (though I hear ondol floor heating may also work).

Widely-available commercial gochujangs mostly derive from wheat, but they still make a mean nakji bokkeum (spicy stir-fried octopus) or tofu stew. My first tentative foray into Korean cooking was daktoritang, a spicy braised chicken dish that came out mild and stew-like in my tentative hands. But I like spice, and it didn’t take long to figure out what a versatile ingredient gochujang was: rub it on a pork roast or replace the tomato paste in vegetable soup and you have added flavor as well as heat. Indian friends include it in their yogurt marinade for tandoori chicken or in vegetable curries.

Having so many brand choices on store shelves can be daunting: do I pick one from Sunchang (a famous gochujang-making village in N Jeolla), one made with sun-dried peppers (taeyang) or one from sweet, glutinous rice (chapssal)? They all have their advantages. I find the bottled chogochujang (vinegared, with a sauce-like consistency usually used for raw fish and seafood) is particularly adaptable for Western fusion. The complex barbecue-like flavor livens up everything from cheeseburgers to ribs. Someone I know even pours the bibimbap version, flavored with soy and honey, straight onto her cottage cheese.

Gochujang is occasionally equated with a fiery ketchup (CJ Food Corp is marketing an Annie Chun’s version in the US as a ‘sweet & tangy’ dipping sauce). And, indeed, it is better than Heinz atop the gaeran mari (rolled omelet) that might accompany a night’s drinking in Seoul. Devotees even carry tubes of the stuff in their bag in case of culinary emergency. But for me, it’s so much more than mere condiment. When I see the deep red color of a gochujang-flavored dish, I know I’ll be enjoying a quintessential taste of Korea.

What did I know about Korean food before visiting the country? I must confess: hardly anything. Other Asian cuisines like Chinese, Japanese and even Thai are far more prominent in my country: Belgium.

So, as a way of getting to know more about the country and its culinary culture I decided that I should, as part of my round the world trip  (I am in fact a travel writer), learn to cook some local dishes. Through cooking I hoped to learn more about the people and their culture.

I managed, a bit to my own surprise, to find my way via subway and through the small alleys of the capital, to arrive just in time for Chef Hyejin’s cooking class at O’ngo Culinary School (www.ongofood.com). The young female chef proposed two Korean classics for today’s class: kimchi and bulgogi.

We were told Koreans see rice is the main ingredient of a meal. However, a meal here traditionally consists of several side dishes accompanying that bowl of rice. So, we were going to learn to make the sides to go with the rice: Kimchi and Bulgogi. The kimchi we’d be making today would be the one with cucumber –and it seems to be one of the most popular ones, (according to reactions I got when I told other Koreans later about my experience).

But the cucumber variant is only one of many: ‘We have at least 200 differents sorts of kimchi’, Hyejin tells us. ‘Every household has its own recipe to make this dish. In most Koreans kitchens you will see also two refrigerators: one is used especially for the kimchi. The most common kimchi is made with napa cabbage, but you can make it with any vegetable you want’.

Hyejin demonstrated making the dish for us and, wauw!,  I must say; it not only looked delicious, but the sauce we learned to make to stuff the cucumber tasted gorgeous. The combinations of the sweet and sour flavours with the fresh vegetable was my first discovery that afternoon. But Hyejin also said something else, which I didn’t know: “the freshness and use of seasonal ingredients is something Koreans value highly.” The conclusion is very simple: this kimchi dish will be something I will have to introduce to my family and friends at home.

The same actually is true for the bulgogi, a dish made of fine sliced meat and a number of ingredients often used in this cuisine: sesame oil, garlic, sugar, pepper, spring onions, and soy sauce. And just as the kimchi, it is relatively easy to make. But while preparing the bulgogi I was struck by the fact that we are asked to wear plastic gloves. ‘Koreans don’t like to touch food with their bare hands’, we are told. The result however looked just as exquisite as our kimchi. And colourful. Korean food definitively wants to seduce…

Our Korean chef seemed quite satisfied with the way we prepared the classics. As for the taste, we got a thumbs up, but I was quite curious to judge my own creation. I am again pleasantly surprised by the full flavours: sweet, sour, a little spicy, but it all went together very well together. My chopsticks couldn’t stop picking at the kimchi and the bulgogi nor the soup Hyejin had prepared extra. There is only one word to describe it: delicious!

As a journalist I had to be curious. So I wanted to know how Koreans rate their cuisine compared to the maybe better known (or at least better distributed) Chinese and Japanese cuisines. Hyejin’s answer said it all: ‘Chinese use a lot of oil while cooking. That makes their food rather greasy. We think of Japanese cuisine as sweeter and milder than ours. They use less spices, but this gives the food less character. I find the Korean way of cooking as the real thing’.

Who are we to challenge that?