WEBVTT - Korean Food and Modernity 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:10.799 M yung Yang is an ancient theory of yin and 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:17.240 yang and says that the five elements earth, wind, fire, wood, metal, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:24.680 and water make up the universe. Korean food revolves around 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:30.280 this concept, and on the Korean table, garnishes, accompaniments, and 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:34.840 dishes with five colors represent each of these five elements, 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:42.120 and traditional Korean cooking food is medicine, and by balancing 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.800 the elements and what we are consuming, we create balance 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:51.000 and wellness in the body. No other dish evokes and 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:58.000 represents this theory as strongly as beebum bob. Bee bum 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:03.760 bob literally means mixed rice and though there's no particular recipe, 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:06.920 it is a sizzling rice bowl that is topped with 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:12.440 colorful vegetable garnishes and a fried egg. Yeah, Bibimpa means 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.640 is mixed to rice with the beset of ball. And 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.320 we used a storm pot and we hit the pot 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.360 and it sisily. We make the sizzling storm pot b 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.040 and we meet soon. Mainly, my career name is a 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.920 sun me Lee and my restaurant's name is a chong 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.759 Ju restaurant. And joan Ju is one of the city 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.440 in Korea is very famous for the bibbiing bob, and 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:40.600 we are specialized in the bibby pub that's how we 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.160 got the name from choon Ju. Yeah Soon Me is 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:49.160 a second generation owner of Jianju restaurant that has been 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:54.120 specializing in serving bibbon bob for twenty two years. A 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.880 bowl of bibbing bob at john Ju balances the five 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:07.600 elements through color, flavor, and texture. White strands of crispy 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.160 day coon radish on a bed of rice, rich yellow 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:15.400 and eggs, and crunchy raw bean sprouts, red in the 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:19.760 thinly sliced carrots and spicy hot Korean chili paste go 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:25.720 to Jong. These warm colors full of yang are balanced 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.280 in a bowl of beeping Bop with cool Yan colors 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:34.919 like the blue and the black of inky mushrooms, the 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:39.600 deep forest green of dried seaweed, and the gentle char 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:48.919 from barbecued meats or seafoods. Actually, this restaurant is was 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:53.000 owned by my father and mother twenty two years ago, 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.239 and my father is from Janju, is he is a hometown. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.400 So he got the recipe from his best friends who 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:05.600 had a very very famous beeping By restaurant in Chongju. 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:10.600 So he studied the restaurant, but since my mom passed 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:14.519 away the two thousand and five, I started to have 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.560 an ownership from there. So it's been like more than 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:21.799 fifteen years. And I really love cooking and I like 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:26.000 to see people eating my food and make them happy. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:30.400 That's why I have still the owner of a Chouanju 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:35.080 restaurant along with Bimbob. Of today, we are served almost 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:39.440 a dozen small plates called ban chon. Like many East 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.640 Asian cultures, cream food does not follow a course by 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.200 course sequence. Rather, it's a shared meal where all the 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.320 dishes are served at the same time. Usually, this means 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.280 that most of the space on the table is occupied 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.280 by a full spread of dozens of dishes, ranging from 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:01.800 larger mains like the aforementioned people up to smaller pickled 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:06.200 side dishes like the bonchon. The number of dishes usually 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.920 follows a pattern three, five, seven, nine, and twelve dish 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:28.080 table settings according to the number of side dishes today 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.320 on point of origin. We're exploring Korea's ancient culinary traditions 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:37.560 and their modern adaptations. Our first guest, Gee Hey Kim, 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:40.360 is the chef and partner at MS Kim's restaurant in 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:45.239 Arbor Michigan where she's making a both regional and also 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.800 a revival kind of Korean cuisine of her youth and 0:04:50.160 --> 0:05:01.719 her ancestry. Can you tell us some formative food memories 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:06.720 from growing up in Soul? One of them is my 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:12.000 mother making Napa cabbage kimchi during the fall, and remember 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.120 it being very communal. We lived in an area where 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.880 we had a lot of neighborhood woman and and a 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.080 lot of relatives, and they will gather together, and I 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:25.360 remember their conversations like should we have a hundreds of 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.640 types of cabbage? At the time, I think I was 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.960 like seven years old, So what looked to a seven 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.000 year old like mountains and mountains of Napa cabbage just 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:39.960 being brind with like older favored neighborhood women and aunties, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:52.640 and so that that was very memorable. Kimchi is a 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.040 staple in Korean cuisine as a famous traditional side dish 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.320 made from salted and fermented vegetables like Korean radish or 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.600 Napa cabbage, with the addition of a varying selection of 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:10.200 seasonings like go to garu, spring onions, garlic, ginger, et cetera. 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:15.040 For gh kim the Napa cabbage her mother made is 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.839 the one that she considers to be the gold standard. 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:20.520 Because when you grow up with a mother who cooks 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.120 everything from scratch, you you tend to think that that's 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:25.960 all you need to know about clean food. Deep got 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:30.120 it right, you Your mom's fabulous. Everything is made from scratch. 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:34.560 But it's only reasonly that I realized that a lot 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.120 of food that she was cooking was actually regional cooking 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.560 from County Providence to where her family is from. That's 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:46.640 the central part of Crea. So compared to the southern 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.880 more southern Providence, the County Providence recipeople go through a 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:56.240 balance and it's not as salty or as spicy as 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.920 say like La Providence or kun Kuntsung Providence, uh known 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.240 for more saltiness and more heavier use of fermented sea food. 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.840 So then I realized that all the food that I 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.920 was eating was actually not necessarily standard, but like a 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.920 one part of many kinds of regional cooking in Korea. 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.880 So when I decided to go into the kitchen and 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:22.360 become a cook, I started approaching it kind of like 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.880 a study subject, because I can be a little nerdy, 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.320 and because my mom was very protective of her own recipes, 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:33.360 and number two, she didn't think that I should be 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.200 in the kitchen, so she wasn't very upfront with her 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:40.160 own knowledge. Um, So what I did was that I 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.679 started reading books. I just started collecting all the books. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:48.520 And then what really cut my attention was these old 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:53.360 cook books from like eighteenth century, nineteenth century, seventeenth century. 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.640 I think the oldest one goes all the way to 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:58.840 like sixteenth century. A lot of it refers to the 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.480 preservation techniques and how to make alcohol out of cranes 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:07.800 and things like that, and that was just amazing discovery. 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.400 And then I got really hooked because it was breaking 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:15.559 a lot of my own preconceived notion of what clean 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:21.280 food is. And by going more in depth into ancine 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:26.200 cooking and trying to understand the story uh the evolution 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:28.800 of clean cooking, it almost made me feel more free. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:36.840 So one example would be that I have seen American 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.760 customers come in and tell me that Creans do not 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.360 use soatro, but that's not true. And then I have 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.120 clean American customers come in and say that there is 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.880 no cheese and clean coatina. That's also not true because 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:54.920 there's a very very old cheese recipe and it sounds 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:58.360 exactly like ricotta to me. Like you take the milk 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.400 and then you eas meat like ocean water, it says, 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.160 and then you curdle it over the over the heat. 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:08.480 And if it doesn't curdle very well, then you can 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:11.160 throw in a little vinegar or a little bacco leaf, 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.120 which is a fermented rice wine. And it takes different 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:19.240 than we catta because we're using different acid, but the 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.800 process itself is almost identical. And then I found recipes 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.679 that look like a friend chep cheese, like cured hymns, 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:34.000 and so it's just like pretty amazing to see where 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.599 the Clear people has been eating, like what they have 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.160 been eating fews and cheese ago and what they're eating 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:56.120 now and how that became. Yeah, the use of beat 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:58.880 doesn't come into play until too was on kingdom and 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:05.599 that lastic punk on jod years, so a pot of 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.439 five hundred, six hundred years ago. Clear was a Buddhist kingdom, 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:14.120 so consumption of meat was fairly small, so a lot 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:19.439 of use of different vegetables was more more prolific. And 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.679 I think as a chef it's more interesting because how 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.680 do you how do you preserve and make things tasty 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.800 when you don't have a lot of meat products, especially 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.880 if you're in the mountain area and your Buddhist what 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.679 do you do? So what I see is like not 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:41.400 only agriculture, but foraging. So food is medicine, everything stable, 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:46.880 if it's not gonna tell you accidible um and um 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:52.079 like many many different grains. So very recently running a restaurant, 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.960 you hear a lot of like celia disease or altoly immune, 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.680 or like people just avoiding wheat. When I see clean 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.680 in they're really versatile at using different grains and different 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.920 grain flour. You know, multi grain mice is an obvious one. 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.880 But you can also make noodles not just out of wheat, 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.520 And there's long history of making like potato noodles or 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.679 like different types of noodles that like those dishes are 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.400 fully formed, the developed and just as tasty as like 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:28.160 wheat dishes. So when you think about the story broadly 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:34.760 speaking of Korean cuisine, what are some some highlights or 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:40.520 some milestones in that history. You don't really see youth 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.839 of chili peppers. I mean there's stories like there's some 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.280 beeries out there that it came from Latin America in 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.000 the seventeenth century, etcetera, etcetera. If you look at the 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.720 coup books, you don't see it probably big pictured until 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.800 like late eighteenth century. And but when it comes in 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.120 like seeing people love that and then they start adding 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.600 to kimchi to give. If she didn't look like as 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:04.960 fiery and red as it does today, it was more 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.240 of like more akin to sower crowd in a sense 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.280 that it had some Arabatic but it was pretty much 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:15.720 a salt secure of a vegetable preservation. And then once 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.319 the chili flakes comes in that that becomes like we 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.719 really embrace it and then really take it on, and 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:23.199 then now we the clean foods have a reputation of 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:33.839 like being spicy. Gochu which means pepper and Korean is 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:37.439 very subtle with sweet instituacy notes. It's sort of tangy, 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.520 but not really hot. Put gochu is the name when 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.800 the peppers are young, green and used similar to fresh 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:49.360 bell peppers. Hongo chu is what the peppers are called 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.599 when they are red and ready to be harvested and 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:57.280 dried for gochu garu or red chili powder, more so 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.640 than spice. The change that gy c is in modern 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:04.040 Korean cuisine is the addition of sugar, but that's a 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:09.160 very very recent development. And I would say another development 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:15.240 is the import of like black pepper and sugar. Sugar 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:18.880 and black pepper, like very very like simple kitchen staple, 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.960 but it's not around until very recently before we were 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.560 using high and actually not a lot of sweetness at 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:28.960 all where But I do notice that there's very little 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:34.000 sugar in ancient cookbooks. Sweeteners used very sparsely, and it's 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.760 like a tablespoonful of honey for entire part of something. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.880 And my only guess, and this is just a guess, 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.760 would be that, like you see a lot of changes 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:47.599 to Crean cooking with making like nineteen fifties, with the 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.880 modernization in Korean War, US trips come in. That's when 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.240 you see like more use of dairy and butter and cheese, 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:59.480 which is now quite popular in Crea. And I'm wondering 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.160 if that would be the point. It's only like after 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.640 the nineteen thirties cookbooks that I start seeing like about 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.400 proportions of sugars going in and then the proliferation of 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:15.319 a strong culture. I think that also kind of like 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:19.080 pushes more use of sugar, but also more use of salt, 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.320 and more use of MSG and more use of spaces. Yeah, 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.720 just more and more and more. And I think that 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.320 time period that you're speaking to kind of like mid 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.600 twentieth century, even in the States, where we start to 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:37.880 see the proliferation of grocery stores and a lot more 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:43.440 consolidation of the food chain and supply as people are 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:48.360 now being encouraged to, you know, eat food from packages 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.640 and boxes as a means of convenience. So it's the 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:56.600 commodity tion of food. Yeah, you see the United States 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.600 to around the same time, that's right. Yeah, so that 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.640 it seems to check out. And I think, you know, 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.080 the same thing is happening in lots of places around 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.640 the world for the same reason. And you know, up 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:12.320 until like late career was in Clues, we were known 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.080 as the hermit Kingdom. It was not a whole lot 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:20.080 of things coming in from like West. Definitely mean a 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:53.440 lot of trades were with China and Japan a har 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.880 mm hmm. The swift labor because a long time ago, 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.560 we didn't have much sugar in our food. But these 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:08.560 days the young generation they want more like impact on 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:13.520 their palate. So our food is getting spicier and to 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:19.680 make get balanced. Then they need more sweet flavor. So 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:26.440 the true spicy flavor from our ancestor is from from 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.960 the chili powder or chili paste. It's the spiciness. It 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.760 was very heavy and then it comes, you know, very slowly. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.480 But these days, the spiciness of Korean food it comes 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:45.000 very rapid because they are using you know, capsize and salts. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.960 They take out on the the spiciness from the chilies, 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:53.680 and then they make really hot spicy sauce. So to 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:59.000 kill the spiciness, you know, they use abundant amount of sugar, 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:04.200 you know, or like a cone syrup. But the true 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:10.440 sweetness of our cuisine comes from like rice zerrup, which 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:17.360 needs to spend a long time to make it, rather 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:23.000 than like in a very easy product like a consuup things. Yeah, 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:27.280 so it's changing a lot. When I was young. That's 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:29.919 a young Jong who is the co founder of Bury 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:36.080 Kitchen Bori and Korean means route through their website Bury Kitchen, 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.560 which is young and her co founder Sonja, who you 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.000 will hear from later in the episode, share what they 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:46.960 learned and talking to farmers, fishers, and vendors about the 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:53.600 history of Korean ingredients. Her explanation of modern adaptations of 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:58.360 Korean cuisine all can be explained in the evolution of taste. 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.480 A global increased in a taste for sugar has also 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:06.440 meant that those traditional recipes like the ones that g 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:11.679 He researched extensively before opening Miss Kims, are now harder 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.080 to find. Way, but you pronounced it right, And do 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:21.600 you have memories from your childhood of this cuisine before 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:27.200 it became so sweet and spicy? Yeah? Of course when 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.440 I was young, my mom's food where my grandma's food. 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.560 It wasn't sweet. It was a savory rather than spicy 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:39.199 and sweet. But these days the Korean food is described 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:43.920 as mostly spicy food or you know, spicy and sweet food. 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.240 Just wondering for people who aren't familiar with Korean food, 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:52.159 what are what are some dishes or ingredients or some 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:57.280 characteristics of the of the diet that really are typical 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:03.120 in Korean food. People usually they started with like prugogi 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:07.479 or tap te or kim tie, those kinds of recipes, right, 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:12.000 but also something like you know, tap te and prugogi 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:18.639 will be away sweeter at the restaurant and saltier, and 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.960 if you go to someone's house in Korea, you will 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.440 find out, you know, the prugo will be pretty blend, 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.080 and you will be pretty surprised, you know, with the 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:37.000 difference of the flavor difference. And obviously you know, fermentation 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.240 plays such a central role in Korean food, and most 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:51.399 notably in kim chi. Korean cuisine has a long and 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.800 rich history of fermentation which dates back thousands of years. 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.680 It's part of what makes the food distinctly Korean and 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:04.800 also incredibly delicious. These recipes range from light and tangy 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.000 to deep and complex. I think it's the flavor that 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:13.560 you can remember from even your mother's womb for Korean 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.320 And even though when I was really young, my generation 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.200 was eating kim ti, even though I was too young, 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:24.960 and if I couldn't eat it because it was too spicy, 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:29.240 then my mom's generation they rinsed it in the water 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.639 and then they they feed us, you know, kimchi. But 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:39.080 these days, you know, young generation, the young mother, they 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.760 never forced, you know, there are kids to eat kimchi 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:47.360 like that, So the memory of the kimti is also changing. 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.800 It's Young Jung guides us through a regional tour of 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:02.200 South Korea from the vantage going three distinctive styles of 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:08.960 preserved fish. Their methodology and curing are all unique. It's 0:21:08.960 --> 0:21:11.919 a story that ran as our cover for wet Stone 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:16.840 Magazine Volume two. So the first one that we have 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:23.280 is the guamegi which is from the southeast coast. Pamegi 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:28.120 is a dried fish you can dry herring or sorry, 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.200 it is dried near the seaside because you know, the 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:36.040 sea breeze, you know, it's freezing the fish and throwing 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:41.600 like you repeatedly. It gives really interesting texture of the fish. 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:46.320 So if you go to the the Pohan area where 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.800 is famous for drying this fish during the winter time, 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:53.280 then you can't see like in a thousands and thousand 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:57.639 thousands fishes hang outside and then drying there like you're 0:21:57.720 --> 0:22:02.159 dripping oils in the outside. Is that a methodology that 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:07.159 is practiced in coastal areas around Korea or is that 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.080 just in this point particular region. You can say it's 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.879 one of the methodology in Korea. Yeah, But Hamegi is 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:19.399 very famous from hank because the Poan is the city 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.320 where it is near to the sea and it has 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:25.680 the perfect condition you know to try this, you know, 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:30.760 phreezing throwing, drying method for this fish. And then if 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.840 we were to go to the northern part of the country, 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:38.439 we see winte which is a kind of polic Can 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:42.000 you tell us about that? The hunt is really interesting 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:47.639 fish because it's um paula Korean people. They have you know, 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:51.720 maybe about more than forty two different names you know, 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:56.879 only for this fish because we you we use so 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:01.440 many different methods, you know, to process the fish. So 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.200 depends on the dried condition where whether it's a frozen 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:10.200 where like it's fresh. This wish has so many names. 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:14.040 I actually love that that depending on where it is 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:17.520 and it's life cycle, there's a different name associated with it. 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:21.879 How is this wine tape preserved? It's a freezing dry method. 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:26.640 But this area where we make this special fish, it's 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:32.040 amazing cord and we say this area has uh the 0:23:32.200 --> 0:23:36.159 kind of blade cord. The wind is so brooder, so 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:40.080 you feel if you have the wind during the wintertime 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.280 in this area, you feel almost you know, the blade 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:47.080 strike to your face. It's so cold, it's so sharp. 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:52.159 But this this area has very cold area and so 0:23:52.400 --> 0:23:56.160 you dry them in the outside during the winter time 0:23:56.640 --> 0:23:59.680 and then this wish becomes you know freeze with the 0:23:59.760 --> 0:24:03.640 more sister. And then when you help the moisture when 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:08.520 when it is frozen, then it becomes you know, bigger, right, 0:24:09.280 --> 0:24:13.240 and then during the daytime this fish cut though it's thawing, 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:42.639 and then you lose this moisture again because of the 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:47.359 repeated freezing and thawing. Huang Tang, which is the pollock, 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:52.520 develops a unique and fluffy texture. When cooked into a soup, 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:58.720 it produces a milky like stock. Yes, it's a very face. 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:03.800 So Young's cope. Founder at Boori Kitchen, Sonia Swanson elaborates 0:25:04.000 --> 0:25:08.200 on the different preservation methods here Sonia to further exploit. 0:25:08.400 --> 0:25:11.359 And the three fish that we kind of center for 0:25:11.480 --> 0:25:17.640 this piece are Kanwondo unt so Hunti meaning dried pollock, 0:25:18.480 --> 0:25:23.760 and Kanwondo is a region in the north of South Korea, 0:25:24.000 --> 0:25:27.040 So if you're looking at the entire United Peninsula, it's 0:25:27.160 --> 0:25:30.040 kind of central, but in terms of just South Korea, 0:25:30.160 --> 0:25:38.119 it's on the northern part of the country. So what 0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:42.160 happens is in the winter time, pollock from the east 0:25:42.240 --> 0:25:48.000 coast are brought into this really snowy, cold like valley 0:25:48.520 --> 0:25:51.480 in Kongwondo or one of a few valleys where they 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:55.119 have this really cold wind that they call a like 0:25:55.440 --> 0:25:58.520 a translation is a knife wind. It's so cold it's 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:01.840 like biting like a knife. And they hang it in 0:26:02.040 --> 0:26:05.040 these like on these like wooden racks that are in 0:26:05.080 --> 0:26:07.159 the middle of a snowy field. So you're just like 0:26:07.359 --> 0:26:10.320 walking down these roads and you can hear like the 0:26:10.480 --> 0:26:13.560 rustling sound of these like dried fish kind of moving 0:26:13.840 --> 0:26:16.920 in the wind, and it's such an incredible feeling. It's 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:20.440 almost like you're in this like library of dried fish. Um, 0:26:20.880 --> 0:26:23.800 what does that smell like? Exactly? You know, if there's 0:26:24.000 --> 0:26:27.439 very well, we went when the fish were pretty dried. Um, 0:26:27.520 --> 0:26:29.840 I've not been out there when the fish were like 0:26:30.040 --> 0:26:33.600 fresh and freshly hung. But it's like so cold, you know, 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:38.560 you don't really smell that much. And then moving to Tolado, 0:26:38.760 --> 0:26:42.879 which is a more southern West Coast region that's actually 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:45.560 where my family's from. Um, and that's where we go 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:48.560 down for like all the holidays, and so is a 0:26:48.640 --> 0:26:52.240 little bit warmer, and it's on the west coast which 0:26:52.320 --> 0:26:55.520 has a much shallower sea that's more like mud flats. 0:26:56.520 --> 0:27:02.239 And the fish you get there are these small croakers. Um. 0:27:02.320 --> 0:27:06.320 When you dry those, it's called crowby and so crowby 0:27:06.640 --> 0:27:09.879 are salted and then they're hung to dry for a while, 0:27:10.680 --> 0:27:14.120 and it drives very slowly because it's very a more 0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:18.600 humid region. And what's kind of interesting about crowby, and 0:27:19.440 --> 0:27:22.680 this is one of those like examples I think of 0:27:22.840 --> 0:27:25.359 like how in some ways, like Korea has become like 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:29.359 a hyper capitalist, is that there's this special kind of 0:27:30.240 --> 0:27:35.000 grouby called body groupy or barley grooby that's like dried 0:27:35.080 --> 0:27:37.760 and barley, and it's like a very labor intensive product, 0:27:37.880 --> 0:27:41.239 like process. It's a very like luxury product. But if 0:27:41.280 --> 0:27:44.680 you go to like department stores in Soul and go 0:27:44.840 --> 0:27:47.720 into the basement where all the food stands are, you 0:27:47.840 --> 0:27:51.320 can find, especially around the holidays, boxes of crouby, like 0:27:51.400 --> 0:27:57.000 a box of ten gruby that is like over five yeah, 0:27:57.080 --> 0:27:59.439 for a single box. But the reason why I think 0:27:59.440 --> 0:28:02.680 those are so expensive is because around the holidays, especially 0:28:02.840 --> 0:28:06.480 like for certain kinds of business relationships and transactions, you're 0:28:06.520 --> 0:28:10.879 supposed to give the very expensive gifts to like be impressive. 0:28:11.640 --> 0:28:15.000 And so that is one of the very expensive gifts 0:28:15.119 --> 0:28:18.399 you can give, and it's it's usually given in like 0:28:18.800 --> 0:28:22.359 you know, very specific business contexts you know too, and 0:28:22.680 --> 0:28:25.920 occasionally for bribes, although some laws of and passed to 0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:28.879 outlaw how much you can spend on a gift for 0:28:29.000 --> 0:28:35.040 certain government employees. There's a region called kung Fu and 0:28:35.960 --> 0:28:39.320 kang Zongu is also like you know, got a lot 0:28:39.360 --> 0:28:42.360 of like seaports sits on the east coast, like near 0:28:42.440 --> 0:28:46.680 the East Sea, which has like very cold, deep blue waters. 0:28:47.120 --> 0:28:49.760 And the Song and I went down to this really 0:28:50.240 --> 0:28:56.240 cool area of of Kiangsuan Province called Koyong Harbor, and 0:28:56.560 --> 0:29:00.240 in that area, it's like very traditional famous kind of 0:29:00.360 --> 0:29:04.080 dried fish. There's there's a very traditional famous dried fish. 0:29:04.160 --> 0:29:08.240 They're called quameggi. And I had actually not had had 0:29:08.320 --> 0:29:11.720 quameggi outside of the Korea before coming to Korea ever, 0:29:11.880 --> 0:29:14.360 because it's one of those things that doesn't ship very well. 0:29:15.560 --> 0:29:18.320 So the way that cameggie has made it was usually 0:29:18.400 --> 0:29:22.800 traditionally made with herring, but the herring populations kind of 0:29:22.880 --> 0:29:24.840 started to drop off in the last few years, so 0:29:24.920 --> 0:29:27.880 they started to replace it with Pacific story, which is 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:31.120 a little smaller, but I think they're both both herring 0:29:31.240 --> 0:29:33.160 and sorry are known for having a lot of like 0:29:33.320 --> 0:29:37.840 oil um. They're very oily fish, and this is like 0:29:38.000 --> 0:29:41.240 why this fish is so delicious. I don't know about you, 0:29:41.320 --> 0:29:45.800 but I love oily fish. What's cool is that they'll 0:29:45.880 --> 0:29:48.520 like filet these fish, and they'll so rather than drying 0:29:48.560 --> 0:29:52.800 them whole as you do with hunt and crooby, Quameggi 0:29:53.000 --> 0:29:55.680