By Mark Peterson
Recently, the New York Times published an article saying that the high-class restaurants in New York that featured French cuisine for decades are being replaced by high-class Korean restaurants. So, on a recent trip to New York, yes, I had to try one of these new upscale restaurants. It was very expensive, but it was really, really tasty. Wonderfully creative dishes with exciting flavors that overwhelmed the senses.
I posted a video on the culinary experience in New York on my YouTube channel and was pleased and surprised at the reaction. Pleased, of course, that people are recognizing the inherently wonderful cuisine of Korea, but surprised at those who seemed to argue that authenticity trumps all. In other words, if it’s not authentic Korean food, it is a corruption that is somehow unacceptable? But my feeling is that in the same way the Korean wave and all the K-pop phenoms are innovative and creative but are not really “authentic” Korean music, also, Korean food can be innovative and creative and express Koreanness in new ways.
The food at the restaurant I tried was definitely Korean but definitely novel and creative. The restaurateur had taken new food favorites — including urchin — and typical Korean spices and ingredients and combined them in new ways. Nothing about the food was non-Korean, and yet none of the dishes was typically Korean.
I mentioned in my video that one of the dishes included “wagyu,” a kind of Japanese-style beef. Several of my Korean subscribers responded that the food was corrupted and influenced by Japan. My view is quite the opposite — that Korean food has “taken over” a Japanese cultural item. It was not that one Japanese item made the whole Korean experience corrupted, but rather that the umbrella of Korean food included something Japanese. But the greater argument might take view of the fact that wagyu has become popularized and probably downgraded in the overall American food experience — Arby’s advertises wagyu beef on one of their sandwiches. Does that mean Arby’s has “sold out” to Japan? No. And it doesn’t mean the Korean cuisine in New York has sold out to Japan.
The greater argument that many of my subscribers raised was centered on the term and concept of “fusion." Yes, one could argue that what’s going on in New York’s finest restaurants is fusion, but I’m not comfortable with that term as a description of what I experienced at the fine dining restaurant in New York. Fusion is a term that describes many kinds of modifications of Korean food, many of which are quite ordinary. I would not use the term fusion to describe the fine dining restaurants of New York. Yes, there was an element of fusion, but the New York restaurant took quite a different approach, I thought. It was not overtly trying to make Korean food presentable to the American palate by blending American food with Korean food. It presents Korean food in novel ways that were not blended with American food.
The argument is a little weaker that the New York experience is not blended with Japanese — there was some obvious blending there, but not so much as to weaken the food offerings as anything less than Korean. There was a certain element of a sushi bar about the place, but it was far, far removed from sushi. If someone came away saying that the new Korean food was “Japanified” — or had sold out to Japanese food — I would disagree strongly. The offerings did not seem like those of a Japanese restaurant. There was not any attempt to make the food Japanese-style Korean food — the food was uniquely and purely Korean, even though it was not “authentic”. Maybe one should say it was not traditional, yet, the raw materials, the food, the seasonings were all unmistakably Korean.
No, rather than carping about inauthenticity, or fusion or Japanese influence, I think we need to congratulate the restaurants of New York for their innovative and creative new presentations of Korean food. Every region of Korea has its unique food. We live in a global village now, and the regions of “Korea” that are located geographically in New York, have the right to offer their “regional’ interpretations of Korean food.
And in the same way that K-pop music and K-drama are inspired by Korean tradition and offer Korea in novel and creative ways, they should not be discarded as being inauthentic. There is no "gayageum" in K-pop music, there is no mask dance performer in K-drama, but still the music and drama of the Korean wave is Korean.
In this regard, the new fine dining experience of New York restaurants is really more closely tied to its Korean roots than are the music and drama of the worldwide K-pop expressions. And rather than quibble about inauthenticity or fusion or any other lessening of the success of Korean fine dining, we should, along with the New York Times, take note of this great success of Korean culture and celebrate the accomplishment. Congratulations Korean culture for expressing yourself in food as well as in music, drama and other arts. "Chukhahamnida."
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is a professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
Fine Korean dining
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0
07.01.2024
By Mark Peterson Recently, the New York Times published an article saying that the high-class restaurants in New York that featured French cuisine for decades are being replaced by high-class Korean restaurants. So, on a recent trip to New York, yes, I had to try one of these new upscale restaurants. It was very expensive, but it was really, really tasty. Wonderfully creative dishes with exciting flavors that overwhelmed the senses.
I posted a video on the culinary experience in New York on my YouTube channel and was pleased and surprised at the reaction. Pleased, of course, that people are recognizing the inherently wonderful cuisine of Korea, but surprised at those who seemed to argue that authenticity trumps all. In other words, if it’s not authentic Korean food, it is a corruption that is somehow unacceptable? But my feeling is that in the same way the Korean wave and all the K-pop phenoms are innovative and creative but are not really “authentic” Korean music, also, Korean food can be innovative and creative and express Koreanness in new ways.
The food at the restaurant I tried was definitely Korean but definitely novel and creative. The restaurateur had taken new food favorites — including urchin — and typical Korean spices and ingredients and combined them in new ways.........
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