Can Korean Food Break the ‘Top Five’?

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  05.18.09 | 10:51 AM ET

Photo by avlxyz via Flickr (Creative Commons)

When it comes to kimchi, the government of South Korea means business. The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries recently announced a $40 million fund to enact its “Global Hansik” campaign to make Korean food one of the five most popular ethnic cuisines in the world.

The Ministry’s rather methodical strategy includes introducing Korean cooking classes at Cordon Bleu-affiliated culinary schools worldwide; promoting celebrity Korean chefs; and increasing the number of Korean restaurants overseas to 40,000 by 2017.

Adapting Korean cuisine to foreign palates is also high on the agenda; a new Kimchi Institute will test various kinds of pickled vegetables for foreign markets.

Of course, more than a few foreign establishments are already waving the “Global Hansik” banner unprompted.  Los Angeles’ Kogi taco truck is a hit among the Twitterati, while Seattle’s Joule has drawn raves for its “palate-bending” French-Korean dishes, created by Seoul-raised chef Rachel Yang and husband/co-chef Seif Chirchi.

In a recent interview with the Korea Times, Yang suggested the introduction of Korean food abroad “has to happen naturally.”  Seems the Korean government is taking a more competitive approach.

Tags: Food, Nation Branding, Asia, South Korea, Shrinking Planet

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


9 Comments for Can Korean Food Break the ‘Top Five’?

Hal Amen 05.18.09 | 4:39 PM ET

Yum, yum, yum! In my humble opinion, Korean and Mexican are the only two cuisines worth a damn. I just hope they don’t change the flavors too much for our “foreign palates.”

Liz Kao 05.18.09 | 5:29 PM ET

I don’t think that any Korean cuisine needs to be “fancied-up” at the Cordon Bleu…Korean food (or at least what I’ve tasted in the restaurants here in the San Francisco Bay Area) is good “as is”! True, some people may be a little concerned about a hot indoor grill being dropped right in front of them into the middle of a table but I’ve never seen anyone’s knee caps get burned. :-)

The secret is in the marinade though, for all that kalbi. I’ve heard that 7-Up is part of a successful recipe.

- Liz K.
Director of Operations (taking a small break from work to dream about Korean BBQ)
http://www.dealbase.com

Eva Holland 05.19.09 | 5:30 PM ET

I’ve always figured Korean food’s secret weapon was the fact that sushi is so wildly popular… and so, so many Japanese restaurants are actually run by Koreans. If the government can somehow harness that, and start sneaking Korean food onto the menu (actually, a lot of sushi places near me have already started shifting to “Japanese and Korean”), they’ll have world domination before they know it.

Hal Amen 05.19.09 | 5:34 PM ET

I gotta say though, Eva, Korean food at sushi places is never anywhere near as good as the stuff at dedicated Korean establishments. Still, it’ll do in a pinch. :)

Robert Reid 05.21.09 | 11:51 PM ET

So what are the top five, I wonder?

Josh, Great Chefs 05.28.09 | 5:57 PM ET

Yes, I’ve never seen what the top five are regarded as.  Also, I find it’s a bit of a shame that restaurants would hybrid their menus like that.  Is it better to mix two cooking groups because of similarities like that?

visitseoul 07.06.09 | 10:39 PM ET

yes. I always eat korean food. It’s so tasty…

visitseoul 07.06.09 | 10:40 PM ET

Korean foods are so good…

Tammy 07.14.09 | 2:19 AM ET

Actually the secret to authentic Korean Kalbi isn’t 7 up (they didn’t have that 400 years ago), it’s Asian pear juice.

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