My thought after reading through this - good for you Anthemoney for hanging in there. Its always hard to enter an established community. We do welcome folks into the forum every single day, but once we know that someone is going to be making money off of our knowledge, and they haven't invested in the community's knowledge base (take, not give), then we get a bit touchy.
I want to point out a small version of a model that might be of interest. I don't know that your target market is interested in reading a story or essay - the whole point is convenience right? Askinosie choclates offers just a brief snippet of info that makes the chocolate more interesting. I could see you sending a bibimbop package with a "trading card" of either someone important to the origins of the dish, or maybe a daily Korean working person who might eat it and a short quote about what it means to them...tied to a website with more info for people who actually want to take the time to learn more.
As to reading these forums - they're too big to just jump in. Instead of the dinner forum suggested above, I would go into the regional cuisines where it will be more digestable. Maybe the Pad Thai topic, or Ethiopian. Lots of info, but less overwhelming.
