Eating Korean in America: Gastronomic Ethnography of Authenticity

154 Pages·2015·1.56 MB·English

by  Sonia Ryang

S O N I A R Y A N G
EATING KOREAN IN AMERICA
Gastronomic Ethnography of Authenticity
Eating Korean
in America
Series Editors:
Christine R. Yano and Robert Ji-Song Ku
E ating Korean
i n America
GASTRONOMIC ETHNOGRAPHY
OF AUTHENTICITY
Sonia Ryang
U niversity of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu
© 2015 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
20 19 18 17 16 15 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ryang, Sonia, author.
Eating Korean in America : gastronomic ethnography of authenticity /
Sonia Ryang.
pages cm — (Food in Asia and the Pacifi c)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8248-3935-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Cooking, Korean. 2. Food habits—United States. I. Title.
II. Series: Food in Asia and the Pacifi c.
TX724.5.K65R93 2015
641.59519—dc23
2014037414
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid- free
paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Council on Library Resources.
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc.
For Sid, in grateful appreciation for all the Th anksgiving meals
you invited me to— each one a true feast in all kinds of ways

Contents
Ac know ledg ments ix
Introduction 1
1 A Global Slurp: Naengmyeon Noodles 21
2 Food for the Ancestors: Jeon Pancakes 39
3 Two Colonizations and Th ree Migrations: Grilling Galbi 56
4 A Taste of Diversity: Th e Bibimbap Rice Bowl 84
Conclusion 105
References 121
Index 133
Color plates follow page 68.
vii

Ack nowl edg ments
Th is book came into being by accident. In the fall of 1997 I happened to
land my fi rst academic position at Th e Johns Hopkins University in Balti-
more, thereby becoming a colleague of esteemed anthropologists whose
work I had read and admired as a student. Of all these people, it was
Sidney Mintz whose name lured me to Hopkins; I had marveled at his
Sweetness and Power while studying social anthropology at Cambridge
University. Many great and wonderful things fl owed from my contact with
Sid, one of them being the opportunity to sample his incredible cooking
and benefi t from his vast knowledge of food. He showed me when to eat
what, and in what way. His dishes I had the honor of sampling consisted of
commonplace ingredients masterfully combined to create exquisite fl a-
vors. Th ere was his tarragon lamb, his w ild-r ice side dish, and lots of inter-
esting soups— my mouth is watering just thinking about them.
Sid’s generous approach to the enjoyment of food was an e ye-o pener to
me. As I had been an international student from Japan in Eng land and
then a postdoctoral fellow in Australia, my personal life did not allow
much time for enjoying good meals, let alone for cooking them myself. Sid
taught me how one should appreciate life— namely, as a human being fi rst
and then as an academic. Th e stories he told me about food w ere funny
and memorable yet always had an important message that taught me about
aspects of human society. Since then, the Johns Hopkins anthropology de-
partment has changed considerably, with departures and new arrivals,
and no longer does it even look the same, but the origin of this book can be
traced to that department as it was in 1997. I wish to acknowledge that
without Sidney Mintz this book would not have come into being.
ix