BIG IN JAPAN
Korean food
 Korea, a
country that has been a constant influence on Japan throughout its history, is currently
going through a culinary boom. Almost synonymous with Korean cuisine is kimchi
(also spelled kimchee and kimch' The hot and perennially popular pickle has become a
regular on the Japanese dinner table. Made from Chinese cabbage and radish, the basic
taste of kimchi is derived from salt, lactic acid produced by fermentation, spices and
seafood. And according to the Korea Food Research Institute, there are at least 187 kinds
of kimchi produced in Korea. In Japan there are probably the same number of products with
kimchi flavoring everything from cup ramen to ice cream.
One of the key ingredients in kimchi and other Korean favorites is red chili, and recently
Japan has gone crazy for the firey taste of the chili's active compound capsicum. In
addition to making your taste-buds tingle and your brow perspire when you taste it,
capsicum is known for its beneficial effects on the body, such as boosting the metabolism
and digestion. It's also one of the key elements in many of the weight control pills
presently popular in Japan.
There are many theories on why Korean cuisine is gaining popularity, but the question
should be, why wouldn't it? Korean food has the same basic seasonings as Japanese food,
besides the excessive but tasty use of red pepper. Koreans use soy sauce, wine, vinegar,
ginger, garlic, mustard and bean paste in a similar way to the Japanese. Although many
dishes are served or cooked with kimchi, there are also plenty of dishes that are not
served with the uniquely tasting fermented pickled cabbage, such as chijimi
(Korean pancake), namool, solangetang and Bibinbap.
Bibinbap is rice topped with assorted vegetables, seasoned meat, egg and an optional
sweet/hot sauce called kochijyan. Stone bibinbap dishes are heated up and the
ingredients are spread over the interior of the dish to finish cooking. This style of
serving rice has become extremely popular recently and is known as ishiyaki in
Japanese. Conventional yakiniku (BBQ) restaurants have always served bibinba, but
many new restaurants have started to target fans of the dish by coming up with cheese,
vegetable or extra hot permutations of bibinbap-just another instance of the Japanization
of a foreign cuisine. Recently Domino's Pizza even launched a Korean-style pizza called Kourai-karubi,
(Korean rib meat) with kochijyan sauce and chijimi-style potato chips have also hit the
shelves. It may outrage purists - one Korean organization has already complained about the
Japanese bastardizing kimchi - but the new slant is proving popular with young diners.
A more traditional dish is pulgoki, which is also becoming a big hit in the West.
Pulgoki is barbecued pork or beef strips seasoned with garlic, which you eat with kimchi
wrapped in lettuce. Usually a pulgoki dinner is rounded off by frying udon noodles in the
leftover sauce.
If you have taste for Korean sake, try soju. According to the Samsung Foundation
of Culture, soju is Korean distilled liquor made from a fermented malt starter (produced
from steamed rice and water), with an alcohol level of 25 percent. Soju means "burnt
wine" in Korean and is Korea's most popular native alcoholic beverage.
With the forthcoming 2002 Soccer World Cup tournament, to be jointly hosted with Korea,
fast approaching (the first wave of 340,000 tickets went on sale Oct 2) interest in Korean
food is set to sky-rocket further.
Aiko Yokozuka
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