Seoul Food - Jeffrey Cronin

When I was in China...I learned to love the simple nature of many asian ways. I grew fond of asian food and learned to enjoyed many foods that were at first very strange to me. Over the years I developed a single culinary rule...the food I am trying to eat can not be moving while I am trying to eat it! After working and living in mainland China for years I left my position to attend Mississippi College School of Law. So when I heard the law school had arranged a summer abroad program in Seoul South Korea I knew I had to go. Yeah, yeah I would get a a few credit hours but the real driver for me was knowing I could study international business in an international environment.

Other blogs here talk about food, customs, behaviors, and the people of Korea. All these together make the country a great place to visit but of these I foundsome of the food interesting. Over the years I have eaten snout, ears, snake, urchins, worms, hearts, frogs, dog, and other foods I still have not indentified. So I was interested in knowing what Koreans eat.

Korea is heavily westernized in many ways and you can easily find KFC, Starbucks, Burger King, Smoothie King, and many other American franchises. But overall the food culture has remained typically asian. For example in many areas of the country there open-air fish markets were you can walk along the street and find coolers, tanks, barrels, etc. full of fish and sea critters just swimming around waiting for you. In these markets you just walk along the road looking at all the different fish and urchins until you find where and what you want to eat. Then along side these small shops there are seating areas available for you to sit and place your order. Once you've ordered the shop owner will catch your fish and pull it from the aquarium. He will then prepare your selection which may be a nice fish head soup or something.

One weekend our group visited Sokcho on the eastern coast of Korea. The weather turned cool and rainy one evening and a few of us were trying to decide where to eat. So we elected to hit the local fish market for dinner. As we walked through the open air market the weather turned cooler and rained more but eventually we found a nice little shop where we all could sit on the floor crouched to a couple of low tables. There we enoyed an exceptional pot of hot fish soup.

Also while in Korea I learned they love kimchi. Korean kimchi is a fermented vegetable that, IMO, has an earned tasted. After realizing Korean eat kimchi with any and all meals I decided to do a little research on the dish. Kimchi dates back some 3,000 years in Korea history and has remained steady in the Korean diet all along. In fact early Koreans used the pickling / fermentation process to preserve the vegetables they would need to store and eat during the long harsh winter months. Also, it has been discovered that the fermentation process not only preserved the vegetable it retains a remarkable nutritional value.

Well as economies globalize the need to understand and accept different cultures is ever increasing. One of the basic traits of a culture is thier food. Food is often a focal point of meetings or business gatherings; so knowing about other cultures and their food is important. One day you may attend a dinner provided by a foreign associate and you may be shocked if you have no idea what could be served.