Seoul Food
According to a quick Google search, the Seoul metropolis is the fifth largest in the world. It certainly feels gigantic and densely populated in the extreme. When you stop to think about nearly thirty million people living on millions of acres of concrete and eating upwards of three meals a day you realize that Seoul is a supply chain miracle of nearly Biblical proportions. Unlike the midwestern United States, you don’t see herds of cows or fields of corn along the roads anywhere. I’ve heard that South Korea has a lively agricultural sector, lively and invisible from the perspective of metropolitan life. But restaurants selling variously prepared farm produce abound in nearly every square inch, pardon me, square centimeter of Seoul.
As an avid fan of Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins, And Dives, I’m always looking for a cool place to order a meal. However, the selection of dining options in Seoul is like drinking from a fire hose. Let’s begin with coffee shops. I am told that the advent of the coffee house/roaster/shop is a fairly recent phenomenon in Korea. Over a decade ago, on my first trip to Korea, I was stunned to walk past a Starbucks coffee shop only to find another Starbucks on the next corner. In those days, without Google maps, finding a coffee shop in a major American city could take a considerable amount of time. In Korea today, not finding a coffee shop is a much more significant challenge. There are literally half a dozen in every block. They vary from tiny little neighborhood shops with a couple of tables and an espresso machine in a revamped janitor’s closet to palatial multi-storied affairs with waiters in livery. But you do have to make a point about hot coffee because Korean culture is so infatuated with their lattes and cappuccinos that they prefer to drink them “on the rocks.”
If your preference is for something more substantial than coffee shop fare, you needn’t worry. Wedged between and stacked on top of all the coffee shops are a plethora of restaurants that can best be described as dazzling. In fact, the word “plethora” was probably invented just to handle the eatery situation on the streets of Seoul. It’s hard to describe.
It should be noted that fast-food restaurants have made their way into Seoul. Mcdonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell are ubiquitous throughout the city. But in the hands of Korean owners, the franchises have inherited a level of sophistication that American versions only dream of. It took me a long moment to realize that my elegantly arranged Big Mac not only included the traditional fries but also a side of kimchi. In Korea, the concept of a fast food basket including sandwiches, fries, and drinks is called a set. And it has that name for a reason because a set is set. This means that all attempts to customize it will completely fail. For instance, exchanging the drink in a set for a milkshake doesn’t happen. There’s no drama, the server just fails to understand what you’re asking until you give up and take your set with the diet coke displayed on the menu. Then of course they say, “That will be 7500 won,” with a perfect American accent.
A significant portion of the Korean restaurant industry is dedicated to bringing Koreanized favorite American foods to the populace. This goes way beyond putting Kimchi on pizza. Indian, Tex Mex, Italian, Chinese, and any imaginable variety of cultural cuisines express themselves on nearly every street in Seoul. My theory is that much of this trend was started by clever Korean entrepreneurs in the borough of Itaewon who, for years, served the American military living near there. Nothing soothed homesick soldiers like eating pizza or Tex Mex like it was in America. Recently this trend in multiculturally Americanized food has spread itself over the entire metropolitan area. Why wouldn’t the American diet be preferable to the Korean staples of rice, seaweed, and fish which have produced generations of slender vigorous people? Certainly, this trend bodes well for the future of the Korean gridiron, heavyweight wrestling, or wherever sport requires a more substantial body mass.
In this vein, the rise of the American hamburger in Korea is worthy of special note. Most Americans instinctively know that fast food does not actually produce a hamburger. Even though its counterfeit simulacrums serve in a pinch, a true American hamburger requires thick, handmade patties of ground beef and toasted buns fried on an ancient well-seasoned grill. Half a dozen years ago we visited a hamburger joint in Seoul that was making a meteoric ascent in popularity. The owner was an ethnically Korean American who had returned to the old country to import this new world delicacy. He certainly knew what he was doing. The hamburgers were excellent, and the restaurant was filled with Koreans decked out in their loveliest formal attire. Signs all around the wall loudly instructed, “Please eat the hamburgers with your fingers.” Our table was the only one following these instructions. At every other table, Koreans were politely eating their hamburgers with a knife and fork. Evidently, chopsticks were too much of a challenge.
The food preparation style called “barbecue” leads to confusion for an American in Korea. In the US we think we have a corner on barbecuing, but we really don’t have a clue. Koreans were barbecuing before America was a gleam in Christopher Columbus’s eyes. In fact, if Jesus had visited Korea, the story of the feeding of the five thousand might have included Korean barbecue in addition to fish and loaves—it’s really that old. Current options of “going out for Korean barbecue” include a range from homey little three or four table establishments to high rise buildings with elaborate Korean gateway facades and valet parking. As you walk into a Korean barbecue restaurant for the first time you will be confused thinking you may have accidentally entered a medieval torture chamber. All the tables feature built-in gas or charcoal grills with exhaust hoods hanging over them from the ceiling on long metal tubes. This confusion dwindles as course upon course of delectable meats are brought to your table along with vegetables to be cooked on and eaten directly from the grill. It is impossible to describe the culinary impact that two thousand years of perfection bring to a Korean barbecue. It alone is worth a trip to Seoul.
One gets the feeling that the Korean metropolis primarily feeds itself from its restaurants, cafés, and coffee shops. But what do Koreans eat at home? Well, the overall picture of nutrition in Seoul is not a simple bifurcation between eating out and home-cooked meals. Korea has had a multi-year head start on “ordering in” which many world cultures have only just discovered in the post-pandemic era. For over a decade Seoul has facilitated home delivery of restaurant food using an army of scooter drivers that would make the U.S. Cavalry envious. These drivers often break the world land speed record between lanes of traffic on Seoul roadways delivering a dazzling array of cuisine carried in insulated boxes fixed to the back of their scooters. It is an amazing system of food distribution that has settled into an interlocking capitalistic enterprise between independent small businesses linked through technological miracles. All you need is a smartphone in Seoul and you can eat almost anything almost anywhere.
This still leaves the question hanging in the air, does anyone actually cook anything in their homes? Our children swear that they do, but actual evidence of it remains to be seen. However, there is a good reason for this. Their Korean housekeeper is an absolute wizard in the kitchen. When you come home four to five nights a week to mouth-watering Korean cooking, why would you bother to cook yourself? My wife and I talk all the time about their housekeeper’s amazing vegetable tempura, delectable chicken-vegetable-mushroom stew over rice, and stunning lentil soup. It’s a taste of home life in Korea that is extremely remarkable and a treasure for our family. But by far the most remarkable dish she makes is an edible tribute to what binds America and South Korea together in the modern world. Shortly after the Korean Conflict, many South Koreans were left impoverished and desperately short of food. US Army rations helped to feed the survivors of the war. Out of that period comes a now-traditional, Korean dish called Budae Jjigae (Buda Chigay) which roughly translates into “Army Stew.” It is a spicy sausage stew made with Spam, Vienna sausages or hotdogs, canned baked beans, kimchi, ramen noodles, and gochujang. I must say that without recommending any of the individual ingredients, I am a total fan of the dish. Every time I eat it, I take pride in the American men and women who sacrificed to keep South Korea free, and I delight in the Korean culture who really made something worthwhile out of their sacrifice.