Why do Koreans eat like this?

By Yun Suh-young

Cover of the book "Why Do Koreans Eat Like This?"

When my foreign friend came to Korea for the first time, it was fascinating to see how amused he was about the culinary culture in Korea.

He would ask questions like "Why do Koreans have stainless steel chopsticks and spoons? I've seen wooden and plastic ones in China and Japan but I've never seen this type before!" holding up the chopsticks in fascination. It took him longer to hold them in the right position because they were more slippery than other types.

In a typical Korean restaurant with a high turnover rate during lunch and dinner times, they serve meals in stainless steel bowls, or sometimes plastic ones that look like ceramics. The rice and soup come as a set along with a dozen banchan (side dishes) in stainless steel plates. When foreigners encounter this type of setting in a Korean restaurant for the first time, they marvel at the number of side dishes that fill the table and the fact that they are served for free.

What's with the use of stainless steel products? Why do Korean restaurants spread out dishes all at once? Why do Koreans always drink coffee right after having lunch?

These may be some typical questions that arise when a foreigner comes to Korea and observes the dining habits of locals.

Although it's not an encyclopedia with answers to everything a foreigner may be curious about, the newly released book "Why Do Koreans Eat Like This?" does answer the three questions posed above and many more that may fulfill intellectual curiosities of those who are interested in delving more deeply into the history and culture of how Korean dining culture evolved.

The book is written by gastro-humanities scholar Joo Young-ha who currently teaches folklore at the Graduate School of Korean Studies at The Academy of Korean Studies. Joo has authored several books on the history and cultural evolution of food and this book is another compilation of his academic research on Korea's food history, viewing it from foreigners' perspective. Joo currently lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Joo thoroughly researched the history of Korean food culture and compared it with those of neighboring Asian countries such as Japan and China. The project began out of Joo's own curiosity of why things were the way they were, after seeing and hearing questions from foreigners about behavior such as, "Why do Koreans place napkins below chopsticks and spoons when they sit down on a table?"

A sneak peek answer to this question is that Koreans tend to think that chemically processed products are scientific and safe, and hence hygienic. Since most of these busy local restaurants quickly wipe the surface with a cloth, Koreans are paying "extra care" about their hygiene by placing an additional safe layer over the table. Companies with the word "chemical" in their names rapidly increased during the 1950s through the ‘70s and it was in the 1970s that paper napkins first began to be used in the country, according to the book.

As for the use of stainless steel utensils and tableware, it was due to efficiency and convenience. It was easier to clean and maintain stainless steel than the brassware which was commonly used until stainless steel emerged in the 1960s.

Koreans tend to enjoy the visual satiety that comes from spreading the dishes out on the table, according to Joo, although this culture has gradually evolved to a hybrid form of having some dishes set up on the table and others that come out one by one. Historically, however, sequential dining much like the French course dining used to be more common during 19th century late Joseon Kingdom when royalty existed. Various forms of dining such as individual vs. communal, sequential vs. space-occupational have been merged and evolved to create a hybrid type of dining culture that we know of now.

As for drinking coffee after a meal, it turns out coffee mixes played a big role as a "dessert." The concept of having a sweet dish at the end of a meal which originated from Western fine dining culture evolved into drinking sweet coffee after a meal, which Koreans call "mix coffee" or "instant coffee."

The culture began in the 1960s when newspapers started suggesting drinking coffee after a meal as dessert. Before the ‘60s, coffee wasn't an after-meal drink. But the decrease in sugar prices during the late 1960s and the advent of coffee mixes in the ‘70s followed by "instant coffee" producing machines in the ‘80s led to restaurants serving "mix coffees" as a dessert. Although the culture has now evolved to drinking brewed coffee these days, there are still many restaurants that still serve "mix coffee" in paper cups.

At times this book is a bit too academic, going into too many details in history that may be dragging for readers who're looking for an easy read. It's not a light book (literally too, it's 400 pages!) as it is written by a scholar who truly explores these questions in depth referring to past historical records. But when it becomes a bit too dragging, readers can hop to a different chapter that interests them, as the book does not need to be read sequentially.

What is left much to be desired is the fact that the book is written in Korean. Although it may fulfill the curiosity of fellow Koreans who've wondered why we eat in certain ways, the topic would have been much more appealing to foreigners if the book was written in English.