Gastronomy: Good food and good health by Woo Jae-yeon

Published: October 25 2007 05:12 Last updated: October 25 2007 05:12

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Foreigners often arrive in Seoul expecting Korean food to be somewhere between Japanese and Chinese cuisine. Apart from the staple rice, they could hardly be more wrong.

Korean food is often spicy – but not overpoweringly so, because red pepper paste can often be added according to one’s taste – and Koreans think good health and good food go together.
Authentic Korean food should use ingredients grown near home. It is low in fat and oil.

Almost all meals include a bowl of rice, accompanied by “banchan,” a generous array of side dishes, ranging from blanched mountain vegetables, soy sauce seasoned fish (often anchovies), vegetable or seafood pancakes. And no meal is complete without kimchi – the ubiquitous Korean sidedish of fermented, spicy, red-pepper-seasoned cabbage.

When you go to a local restaurant in Jeolla province, in the south west of the country, you will be overwhelmed by the number of banchans, which easily reaches a few dozen.

Along with diversity and healthiness, presentation is also important. Bibimbab, rice toppled with assorted garnishes of julienne eggs or runny sunny-side-up eggs, meatballs, wilted green vegetables, mushrooms, bean sprouts, with a dollop of sesame oil and red pepper paste, is the epitome of colourful and restorative Korean food.

Another variation of rice is youngyang dolsotbab ( which means nutritious rice served in a hot stone pot), popular with increasingly health-conscious locals, rice cooked from the beginning with a mixture of other grains, gingko nuts, mushrooms, chestnuts, sweet potatoes and spinach or bean sprouts.

Koreans are not big on desserts. A few pieces of fresh fruit, or varied traditional tasty tea made from lightly fermented rice with rice floaters, a fruit punch made with dried persimmon, cinnamon and pine nuts, or sweet and sour green plum tea, would serve as a perfect after-meal refreshment.