Why can't Korean food become mainstream?

[Sneakeater]

Are these [fermented/fishy] characteristics less pronounced than in Korean food? Is it that the fermented flavors are off-set by aromatics and citrus?

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It's definitely one of those two.

Vietnamese food definitely seems to me to be much more, I dunno, delicate than Korean.

[Sneakeater]

OK, Jason said it better.

[donbert]

A few more unsubstantiated theories and opinions from a second generation Korean-American that grew up in Los Angeles but now resides in NYC:

1.) Most of the Korean restaurants in the US were not started by someone with any formal training, a passion for the cuisine or a passion for cooking in general. They were started by enterprising first generation immigrates who saw a business opportunity in the growing Korean community. Making food is just a means to an end, that being money which leads to education for your children who you pressure to becoming a doctor or lawyer not to continue the "family" business.

2.) Historically in Korea cooking is considered manual labor and a low class occupation for the uneducated. While in the west cooking school at least held trade school status, it is only in the last generation that Korea has had any cooking schools at all. If you weren't smart enough to pass civil service exams (or more recently go to college) and you weren't part of the merchant or farming class you worked for someone else cleaning and cooking.

3.) In Korea most restaurants specialize in serving only one type of dish/sub-cuisine. In the US [hyperbole]every[/hyperbole] Korean restaurant tries to serve every kind of popular Korean dish. 10 kinds of grilled meats, 6 kinds of stews, 3 kinds of noodles, cooked fish, raw fish, etc... Though Korea is a very small peninsula the styles of cooking in various regions are very different. The kinds of Korean food found in the US are generic and meant to satisfy the lowest common denominator of tastes and ends up being mediocre.

[Pan]

Donbert, almost all of the things you posted apply to Chinese restaurants, too, with the one partial difference being that some Chinese restaurants in China do have more or less long menus and, therefore, don't specialize in just one thing. I'm not sure whether cooking has been held in more respect in China than in Korea; someone else would have to address that.

[Sneakeater]

This is a completely uninformed response, but in the movie Eat Drink Man Woman the chef was held in almost worshipful esteem.

[larrylee]

This is a completely uninformed response, but in the movie Eat Drink Man Woman the chef was held in almost worshipful esteem.

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As I recall, China has some sort of prestigious master chef award. I saw it on Iron Chef (the original), so it must be true!

[larrylee]

Its the intensity of how much Koreans use those things, Larry. Vietnam and Thailand certainly have fish sauce in their cuisine, but its primarily an accent flavor, at least as how its used in the cuisine that is represented in the US. Too much fish sauce in a recipe is considered to be bad form in Thai and Vietnamese cooking. Fermented stuff is also used as a condiment, not as a prime ingredient or food source.

[...]

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Hi Jason. I think those are all valid points. They got me thinking, and I'll address the audience at large with my following comments.

Not all Korean food is hot, spicy, garlicky, and fermented. It's valid for someone to say, "spicy, garlicky, fermented Korean food doesn't agree with me." To that end, we can refine the argument and say, "Korean food may suffer from an awareness issue. The general perception of Korean food is that everything is spicy, garlicky, and fermented."

But labelling all Korean food that way is inaccurate. Summer is a great time to try samgaetang or naeng myun, foods that are decidedly none of the above. In fact, the NYT has already covered naeng myun. Unfortunately, my wife and I liked You-chun better in its previous incarnation, the strangely-named i36 BBQ, and we prefer the naeng myun at Dae Dong. And for that matter, I had a hard time chewing through the naeng myun noodles at the 32nd St Kum Gan San.

Kimchi makes up a significant percentage of the ban chan brought out in most restaurants, but it's not the only option available. Many Korean soups and stews are actually based on broth made from dried anchovies. Dol sot bibimbap is another classic cross-over dish. It's only as spicy as you choose to make it.

I have no agenda to "force" people to accept Korean food. I'm actually quite glad thdad posted this topic because it's made me think a lot about how my own attitudes toward food have changed over time. We're entitled to our tastes and opinions and it doesn't bother me that people dislike Korean food. We're not all food reviewers with budgets that allow us to go back and retry restaurants and cuisines that don't make good first impressions.

However, I find some of the commentary on this thread disrespectful and shallow. Some of the arguments made carry as little weight as if I were to complain that all Mexican food sucks because the salsa is too hot. Or that American food is boring because it is nothing but fast food burgers and soggy pizza. Let's not forget there's an entire generation of children across Asia (and immigrants here in the US) getting fat because of the influence of "American" food.* Perhaps we should all take a moment to think about America's own food image. It's not all Niman Ranch pork and organic microgreens.

I would be just as disappointed if the topic were about French cuisine (which I love) or Ethiopian (which I don't). I joined eGullet to discuss food, broaden my horizons, and hopefully help others along the way.

I'm reminded of a brief scene from Episode 2 of Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt, in which he tries a pig brain sandwich. It's clear he doesn't like it, but he puts on a strong face and speaks objectively. Shortly afterward, he stops to think. He's been seriously challenged and is trying to figure out what to say. Here is a rough transcript:

"You know, as I'm driving along here, I'm thinking a lot about that brain sandwich. You know, I didn't think it was very good. It would be very easy for me to 'say that sandwich is no good'... but you know what? maybe that's just my palate. Maybe my palate has become... over-Americanized. Maybe the whole point is that these regional foods that really have a great deal of meaning to individual culture groups, like the Germans here in Evansville, maybe that flavor is important to them. Maybe the fact that a lot of other people don't like it keeps it theirs. So it's an acquired taste, or an inherited taste for the German community here. Because the rest of us don't like it that much, it stays theirs. Which means that it's connective tissue to their heritage. Maybe that's what food's really supposed to do after all."

That we could all be so thoughtful.

-----

* http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...agewanted=print

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/nyregion...=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Jason Perlow]

Not all Korean food is hot, spicy, garlicky, and fermented. It's valid for someone to say, "spicy, garlicky, fermented Korean food doesn't agree with me." To that end, we can refine the argument and say, "Korean food may suffer from an awareness issue. The general perception of Korean food is that everything is spicy, garlicky, and fermented."

But labelling all Korean food that way is inaccurate. Summer is a great time to try samgaetang or naeng myun, foods that are decidedly none of the above.

There are certainly many dishes in the Korean repertoire which are not spicy or fermented or extremely garlicky. Just like there are plenty of Thai dishes that don't use coconut milk or bird chiles or lemongrass or galangal or are curry based. Or Vietnamese dishes that don't use mint or coriander or nuoc mam.

The thing is, Americans only understand what is represented in the "zeitgeist" or most general profile of a cuisine, that which is displayed in their best known dishes and which are the main items on restaurant menus. So things like Kimchi, Galbi and Bulgogi is what resonates.

While NYC has any number of really good Korean restaurants, Korean is also a cuisine that I think is also best represented in the homes of Koreans. Its a similar problem that some other ethnic cuisines have, such as Filipino which has some of the same in your face flavor characteristics that tend to turn Westernized people off.

Indian is also a cuisine that I think will have difficulty being adopted in the mainstream for the same reason. Yeah, there's a decent amount Indian restaurants, but Indian food requires a great deal of preparation and many kinds of exotic ingredients, and it could be said its also the spiciest cuisine in the world. So you're not likely to see Vindaloo or Saag or Goat Curry or Bhaigan Bharta end up at the Cheesecake Factory in Sheboygan. Only in metropolitan areas with significant Indian populations that can support Indian restaurants. Its also another cuisine that like Korean, tends to become compartamentalized into ethnocentric neighborhoods, like Curry Hill in NYC or Oak Tree Road in Iselin/Edison, NJ, where entire Indian communities have sprung up, also a case of insularism. It's rare that you see a major restauranteur like Danny Meyer take a risk on something like Tabla in NYC and go for cross cultural appeal. Most Indian restaurants in the US for the most part serve Indians as their primary clientele.

The only reason why Indian food is so pervasive in the United Kingdom is that it was a British colony. Still, if you look at what dishes are popular in England, its stuff like kebabs and Chicken Tikka Masala, which are nowhere near as complex as stuff that would be prepared at a meal in your typical Indian home.

But as I said earlier, assimilation of cuisine also takes time to enter the collective conciousness. The Chinese came to America starting in 1851 and it took a good 70 years or so until we started seeing the kinds of Chinese restaurants we recognize today. Even before we started seeing Chinese restaurants, the Chinese also have had a head start of becoming part of the collective American food conciousness by feeding the poor railway workers and setting up dive restaurants and food stalls during times like the Gold Rush -- which is why everyone now knows what Chop Suey is. By comparison, Koreans didnt really start coming to the US en masse until the 1960s and 1970's. Maybe by 2030 or so instead of your average Middle American ordering Beef and Broccoli, Egg Roll, Wonton Soup and Pork Lo Mein from their local delivery or takeout, they'll be ordering Bulgogi, Pajun, Kimchi Jigae and Jap Chae instead.

But then again, look at sushi. The first sushi restaurant didn't even open until the early 1970's in NYC. But it took a health craze and two decades before it even started to catch on big time. So maybe 2020 for your Kimchi Jigae delivery joint. If they can prove Kimchi stops cancer or cures AIDS maybe everyone will start eating the stuff.

Edited August 14, 2006 by Jason Perlow (log)

[larrylee]

Jason,

Is it me or did your reply double in length from the last time I read it? Maybe I was just half-asleep. :-D I was also thinking that Korean cuisine was better represented in homes. There were many complaints in the thread about how salty and spicy the food on 32nd St is, and then there were some comments on Buddhist food. The food we eat at home ranges somewhere between the two.

It's interesting you mention Indian cuisine, and I'm surprised no one mentioned the spread of Indian restaurants when Thai restaurants were mentioned. Menupages lists 160 Indian restaurants in the area, even more than Thai (144). We had a pot luck lunch at work some time ago and the homemade Indian dishes struck me as infinitely more nuanced, fresh, flavorful than at some of the Indian places we've eaten at. I could eat that every day.

Filipino food doesn't strike me as being too strongly-flavored, though I've only had a few dishes. I wonder if Filipino adobo considered "tasty" or "too ethnic?"

Given what's going on in the Chinatown Brasserie thread, I'm guessing acceptance of Korean cuisine will be pushed back a few more years.

And about kimchi's purported miraculous capabilities, the place settings at Kum Gan San tout "Doctor Someone-or-other's Lactic Bacteria Kimchi." Wow. That sort of advertising probably sells really well in Korea, where the general populace seems quick to latch on to any sort of health food claim, but seeing the word "bacteria" on my place setting didn't exactly stir my appetite! I should have said something.

[Todd36]

But as I said earlier, assimilation of cuisine also takes time to enter the collective conciousness. The Chinese came to America starting in 1851 and it took a good 70 years or so until we started seeing the kinds of Chinese restaurants we recognize today. Even before we started seeing Chinese restaurants, the Chinese also have had a head start of becoming part of the collective American food conciousness by feeding the poor railway workers and setting up dive restaurants and food stalls during times like the Gold Rush -- which is why everyone now knows what Chop Suey is. By comparison, Koreans didnt really start coming to the US en masse until the 1960s and 1970's. Maybe by 2030 or so instead of your average Middle American ordering Beef and Broccoli, Egg Roll, Wonton Soup and Pork Lo Mein from their local delivery or takeout, they'll be ordering Bulgogi, Pajun, Kimchi Jigae and Jap Chae instead.

But then again, look at sushi. The first sushi restaurant didn't even open until the early 1970's in NYC. But it took a health craze and two decades before it even started to catch on big time. So maybe 2020 for your Kimchi Jigae delivery joint. If they can prove Kimchi stops cancer or cures AIDS maybe everyone will start eating the stuff.

←

Sushi has been around in NYC longer than you think---Craig Claiborne mentions in his 1968 NY Guidebook that the restaurant Nippon has a sushi bar---and he assumes that the reader knows what one is. My 1898 King's Guide to NYC mentions the exisitence of Japanese restaurants, and speaks well of them.

[Jason Perlow]

I've got a hard time beleiving that sushi has been served in NYC as early as the 1890's, but that would certainly be an intriguing find. As far as dedicated sushi restaurants go however, I'm pretty sure that the earliest of them opened in 1977 or so. I think that restaurant might even have been Kuruma Zushi but I am not 100 percent positive.

[Todd36]

I've got a hard time beleiving that sushi has been served in NYC as early as the 1890's, but that would certainly be an intriguing find. As far as dedicated sushi restaurants go however, I'm pretty sure that the earliest of them opened in 1977 or so. I think that restaurant might even have been Kuruma Zushi but I am not 100 percent positive.

←

I didn't mean to claim that the Japanse places mentioned in 1898 were sushi places, King doesn't provide that kind of detail. He was clearly about town through, he also mentioned the Nippon Club, which still exists. I am not sure what you mean by dedicated sushi restaurants, as far as I know Kuruma is unique in NY in that the only hot food they serve is sushi. Nippon I belive dates back to the 1950's and I have read Beef Negimaki was invented there in the early 1960's, following a suggestion to the owner by none other than Claiborne. Since in 1968 Nippon had a sushi bar, I would feel comfortable saying that they were a sushi restaurant in 1968.

[SuzySushi]

I've got a hard time beleiving that sushi has been served in NYC as early as the 1890's, but that would certainly be an intriguing find. As far as dedicated sushi restaurants go however, I'm pretty sure that the earliest of them opened in 1977 or so. I think that restaurant might even have been Kuruma Zushi but I am not 100 percent positive.

←

Not to hijack this thread, but I was eating sushi at dedicated sushi bars in NYC a couple of years before my first trip to Japan, which was in 1973, so they had to date back till at least 1971. Kuruma Zushi was one of the sushi bars I frequented, but it was not the only one.

[Sneakeater]

Not to go along with any hijacking, but how much was an average omakase at Karuma Zushi back then?

[SuzySushi]

Not to go along with any hijacking, but how much was an average omakase at Karuma Zushi back then?

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I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure it was under $10.

[Sneakeater]

This is my last post. I am going to go somewhere and kill myself.

[Jason Perlow]

I've got a hard time beleiving that sushi has been served in NYC as early as the 1890's, but that would certainly be an intriguing find. As far as dedicated sushi restaurants go however, I'm pretty sure that the earliest of them opened in 1977 or so. I think that restaurant might even have been Kuruma Zushi but I am not 100 percent positive.

←

Not to hijack this thread, but I was eating sushi at dedicated sushi bars in NYC a couple of years before my first trip to Japan, which was in 1973, so they had to date back till at least 1971. Kuruma Zushi was one of the sushi bars I frequented, but it was not the only one.

←

Suzy do you know the names of any of these? I can't find any documentation on the web regarding what might have been the "first" sushi place in NYC. The Kuruma Zushi reference I think I recall Steingarten might have written or said in an interview but I can't find anything about it.

Can anyone confirm that Kuruma Zushi opened in 1977? Or was it earlier? I got my reference from Savory New York. If Kuruma opened in 1971 or 1972 then it makes perfect sense that they were the first.

Note: Savory lists Hatsuhana as being opened in 1976, one year earlier than Kuruma Zushi. I'm not sure that's accurate either.

Edited August 17, 2006 by Jason Perlow (log)

[raji]

This is my last post.  I am going to go somewhere and kill myself.

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Me too. Check this out:

In 2005, $10.00 from 1971 is worth:

$48.26 using the Consumer Price Index

$39.00 using the GDP deflator

$48.15 using the unskilled wage

$77.22 using the nominal GDP per capita

$110.51 using the relative share of GDP

I can only imagine a NY goomba from that era, knowing NOTHING about sushi, dining there. "Man that's pretty expensive when they don't even bother to cook it for you..." Think John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever

Edited August 17, 2006 by raji (log)

[Sneakeater]

So I guess in 2006, $10 from 1971 is worth:

$300-$400 using the KZ index.

Edited August 17, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[raji]

So I guess in 2006, $10 from 1971 is worth:

$300-$400 using the KZ index.

←

precisely

[SuzySushi]

Suzy do you know the names of any of these? I can't find any documentation on the web regarding what might have been the "first" sushi place in NYC. The Kuruma Zushi reference I think I recall Steingarten might have written or said in an interview but I can't find anything about it.

Can anyone confirm that Kuruma Zushi opened in 1977? Or was it earlier? I got my reference from Savory New York. If Kuruma opened in 1971 or 1972 then it makes perfect sense that they were the first.

Note: Savory lists Hatsuhana as being opened in 1976, one year earlier than Kuruma Zushi. I'm not sure that's accurate either.

←

I don't remember the names of all of the sushi bars I went to -- most were in the 40s or 50s on the East side, and a few were between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

There was Kuruma, Hatsuhana... Takezushi was another one. If I remember correctly, Hatsuhana and Takezushi each had two branches.

I also dined occasionally at Kitcho, but that was for cooked dishes as well as sushi (and that was where I took a crash-course in sushi making). Then there was a hole-in-the-wall in the 50s off Eighth Avenue, upstairs, where I'd go with a Japanese friend for cook-at-the-table dishes like shabu-shabu. Long gone!

Wish I could recall the name of my first Japanese restaurant in NYC -- on East 29th Street, very old, famous for sukiyaki. That may have been the original Japanese restaurant in New York.

Here's one article I found on the history of Sushi in America.

The earliest English-langusge Japanese cookbook in my collection, BTW, dates back to 1949 and was published by the Japan Travel Bureau "to satisfy the desire of tourists on flying trips to Japan." It includes recipes for 6 types of sashimi and 10 types of sushi!

[Jason Perlow]

The article that you linked to says the following about Kurumazushi:

New York City TOSHIHIRO UEZU OF KURUMAZUSHI Uezu was head chef at one of Manhattan's first sushi bars, Takezushi, then opened Kurumazushi in 1977. Try his shiro-ebi—tiny white shrimp imported from Japan's Toyama prefecture.

So obviously it wasn't the first. I'm not sure when Takezushi closed or what year it opened.

Edited August 18, 2006 by Jason Perlow (log)

[rooftop1000]

Ok someone in NY find an elderley neighbor that still has their phone books from the 60s stashed in a closet, and be done with this

old phone books are cool

Tracey

[Todd36]

The article that you linked to says the following about Kurumazushi:

New York City TOSHIHIRO UEZU OF KURUMAZUSHI Uezu was head chef at one of Manhattan's first sushi bars, Takezushi, then opened Kurumazushi in 1977. Try his shiro-ebi—tiny white shrimp imported from Japan's Toyama prefecture.

So obviously it wasn't the first. I'm not sure when Takezushi closed or what year it opened.

←

From a 1981 NYT Article:

"According to Ryudaburo Kawada, the owner of the Takezushi and Kurumazushi restaurants, all mackerel is salted and then marinated in strong vinegar and squid is purchased frozen, a process that kills the parasite. Mr. Kawada also said that all bonito is infected and so is rarely ordered by non-Japanese and the susceptible yellowtail is also purch ased frozen. "

[larrylee]

From a 1981 NYT Article:

"According to Ryudaburo Kawada, the owner of the Takezushi and Kurumazushi restaurants, all mackerel is salted and then marinated in strong vinegar and squid is purchased frozen, a process that kills the parasite. Mr. Kawada also said that all bonito is infected and so is rarely ordered by non-Japanese and the susceptible yellowtail is also purch ased frozen. "

←

I think we're straying off topic now, but the article (which shows up as the first google search on "bonito infected") is interesting. Here it is in its entirety:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...&pagewanted=all