Fermentation, food trucks and fusion

Korean food is very visible in New York. I had only been conscious of the UK’s Korean food scene for a couple of years, whereas there are a proliferation of Korean restaurants in our Brooklyn neighbourhood, not to mention in Koreatown (or “K-Town”) in Midtown Manhattan. And that’s not surprising when you look at immigration to each area; there are approximately 95,000 Korean immigrants in New York state alone, compared to 17,000 in the whole of the UK. This rise in immigration to the US from Korea began in the 1960s, when immigration restrictions from Asia were relaxed (and reflected in the fact that Korean to American immigration rose from just 11,000 in 1960 to 290,000 in 1980). Given this, it’s interesting that the food still feels like a “new” trend, even in the States. Especially considering how delicious it is.

I’ve read that Korean food is relatively “unspoiled” and that this helps explain why it took so long to be accepted into mainstream America. For example, chefs from other Asian countries adapted or created new dishes that would likely appeal more to American tastes, hence the birth of Asian-American classics such as Pad Thai and General Tso’s Chicken, both of which were invented in the US. As I pondered in a previous blog post, immigrants will always bring new tastes and food ideas to the countries they move to, but these will inevitably be adapted to local ingredients and tastes. So while Korean food may be more “authentic” than other cuisines in the US, it has also taken on a new life to create something that feels uniquely Korean-American.

K-Town

Koreatown is full of BBQ places, something that is a key part of Korean food but is also inherent to US food culture (in fact, to lots of cuisines), so this was first on my list of types of restaurant to visit in New York. In my first week here I went to the no-frills Jongro BBQ, which is located in what feels a bit like an office building. Getting the incongruous elevator up two floors of grey carpets and glass windows felt like entering an aeroplane, and stepping out in a different continent: a buzzing, wooden-clad hall filled with BBQ smoke and music. Apparently BBQ places like these are best enjoyed by locals after a few beers on a raucous weekend night (and Jongro’s is open until 4am on Fridays and Saturdays FYI) but that feels like a waste of good food to me! The menu is dedicated to a selection of meat options that are brought to your table raw, and cooked by the servers on the open flames in the middle of the table, a piece of culinary theatre that creates an intoxicating atmosphere and succulent meat that spits and chars in front of you. The meats are all served with a variety of side dishes (or banchan) of vegetables, softly cooked egg and rice, along with the ubiquitous kimchi, which in Korea would usually be homemade within each family and served with every meal, and is made of fermented vegetables (often cabbage and radish) with chilli and salt.

In search of something a bit more low-key I also visited Her Name is Han, which explicitly says on its website that they wanted to recreate Korean “mothers’ cooking” in response to the increasing number of Korean-Americans and Korean internationals living in New York. And it seems to be working; it was so popular that I had to book about five weeks in advance. It has the sort of menu that I love to pore over, a mixture of the familiar and completely new. As with Jongro’s, the dishes all come together to be shared at the table. They make their own kimchi and, as well as having it on the side, we also had a crispy kimchi pancake that was served with an egg softly oozing over the top (see below for photos). We also ordered slow-cooked pork belly with kimchi and berry wine sauce, and jalapeno soybean paste. The jalapeno was a clear nod to US food culture, and worked deliciously with the soft and rich meat. Completing our meal was vegetable bibimbap, a staple rice dish that’s topped with different preparations of pickled, raw and cooked vegetables and served with gochujang (a fermented chilli paste) and best eaten mixed up together to get a bit of every flavour. According to the restaurant, rice is the “essence” of Korean culture and it features in most meals (though interestingly it’s not a native crop to Korea, though it was introduced over a thousand years ago). It was all superb, and I’d love to go back to try more of the menu and sample some new flavours. It’s impossible to sum up a whole food culture after having a couple of meals, but I love the banchan that allow you try lots of different flavours in one sitting, as well as the focus on high quality meat and multiple preparations of vegetables. The emphasis on fermentation is also delicious and characterises a lot of the flavours that I’ve had. For this reason, one article says the most important ingredients in Korean cuisine is time, which just happens to be something I have a lot of this year.

Fusion

While time may be the building block of Korean cuisine, Americans don’t always have a lot of patience when it comes to food (something I sympathise with). Perhaps this explains why the current popularisation of Korean food in the US is thought to have come about through the food truck craze in LA and the Kogi food truck (California has by far the largest Korean immigrant population in the US, which was 327,000 in 2017). The brainchild of Roy Choi (who has been featured on Ugly Delicious with David Chang, Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown and the brilliant film Chef), Kogi mashes up Mexican favourites in California with Korean techniques and flavours. For example, the current menu features the kogi dog with sesame mayonnaise and quesadillas with buttered kimchi. In fact, it feels like a delicious three-way hybrid between Mexican, Korean and American, given the use of jack cheese and burger/hot dog combos. In homage to this idea I made some Korean tortillas at home (main image, and see base recipe here). While I used beef mince, the strong flavours would work well with lots of different proteins. After taking a while to track down some kimchi in a local grocery store, the rest is really straightforward and now I have a cupboard full of ingredients to try out some other Korean-inspired ideas. In some ways, this feels like the best of food in the States: authenticity and fusion all blended together into something delicious and that comes out quintessentially American.