Kimchi Chronicles

Don't you love it when two things that you love join forces to make one super good thing?

Like peanut butter M&M's.  Or reclining sofas.  Or "Brew-n-views."  Or *insert example that does not make me come off as super lazy here*...

Last month I was meandering around the aisles during one of my random H-Mart trips when I spotted a banner promoting this:

Evidently two of my favorites, Korean food and television, have fused together in a new PBS produced show "Kimchi Chronicles."

The show is hosted by Jean-Georges Vongerichten (a three-star Michelin rated French chef), his wife Marja Vongerichten, Hugh Jackman, and Heather Graham.

I already pre-ordered a DVD copy.

It's inspiring to see others excited about Korean food, which is still somewhat of an uncharted cuisine to most Americans, including myself.  Though I was born in South Korea, I grew up in the Midwest, and not surprisingly, I didn't know what kimchi was until high school, and even then I never tasted it until college.  

After living in Korea for a year, I am now a convert.  The dishes are always vibrant and colorful, while the flavors tend to be bold and at times unapologetically spicy.  And more often than not they are extremely healthy.

*Sidenote:  In one of my first classes teaching in Korea I asked my students if they liked chocolate cake and, to my surprise, nobody raised their hand.  Then I asked if anyone liked "dubu," the Korean word for tofu, and every hand shot up.  Talk about culture shock...

One of the best parts about Korean food is the extremity when it comes to temperature.  Soups and stews are served piping hot and kept bubbling inside electric or clay pots throughout the duration of the meal.  Marinated pieces of meat are plucked straight from the sizzling grill to your mouth.  Chilled dishes like naeng myun ("cold noodles") are served inside an icy, vinegary broth filled with shaved ice.

 Koreans tend to use ingredients with prominent (yet surprisingly familiar) flavors like chile peppers, vinegars, garlic, soy sauce, and sesame oil.  And no respectable Korean meal is complete without kimchi - crisp, briny pickled vegetables with a hint of spiciness.

For those sensitive to spicy food, Korean food may at first be an acquired taste.  And for anyone like me who hails from the land-locked plains of the Midwest, the miscellany of seafood can take some getting used to.  Especially when it's served still wiggling around on the plate.

My first experience eating Korean food was Freshman year of college.  I was on a field trip in Chicago with the Korean Student Association, which I had joined in an attempt to broaden my cultural horizons.  At the start of the day, we stopped at a Korean restaurant for lunch.  Bibimbap was the most innocent-sounding dish on the menu - beef with mixed vegetables - so I ordered it expecting something like Chinese stir fry with some broccoli, carrots, maybe some snow peas.  What I received instead was something that looked more like this:

I ate a few bites out of politeness for my classmates, then, like a child, swished it around in the bowl to make it look like I had eaten more and promptly claimed I was full.  When we reached our next destination (the mall), Mikala and I ducked into the convenience store, bought a sandwich and shared it in a corner hoping no one would see us.  I laugh at this scenario because I love bibimbap now and am mystified at the thought of preferring a convenience store sandwich over it.  But the fact is, it's our instinct to cling to the familiar, even if it comes in the form of processed meat wedged between two slices of stale bread.

Eventually I came to my senses and these days I can only lament at the shortage of Korean food around me.

But now I'll have the Kimchi Chronicles.  And Maangchi.  I totally want to make her kimchi pancakes:



Also, if you feel so inclined, you can watch a few clips of the Kimchi Chronicles here.  Or check it out on PBS.  Or just go eat some Korean BBQ.  Win, win, win.

oo,

Top Chef Meets NASA

Did anyone catch last night's episode of Top Chef?  (Check it out on Hulu here)

We have been particularly interested in this season since it takes place in DC.  And last night we were even more particularly interested because the episode took place at NASA!

It was fun watching with Patrick since he knew or had met most of the NASA people on the show.  The challenge, of course, was to prepare a gourmet dish for space.  The winner's dish would be freeze-dried and sent to the International Space Station.   In the end, I think the judgment was based more on flavor and execution rather than practicality as a space meal (Lamb chops in space?  Come on now...) but it was still interesting to see what kinds of dishes they came up with.

Random sidenote:  Before the episode even started, I was curious to hear how many times they would incorporate the phrase "Out of this world" but I believe it was only once or twice.

Patrick already knew a little bit about space food as he has toured the space food labs at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX for work and even attended a luncheon there where he was served a full-course meal of freeze-dried astronaut food.  Apparently food tastes better in space when it's spicy, and so many of the foods are prepared that way.  Even the green beans he ate were "spicy green beans."  And I'm told one of the favorites among the astronauts is the spicy shrimp cocktail.

I think when most of us consider space food, we immediately think about the freeze-dried strawberries and ice cream that you can buy at the gift shops (which, if I recall correctly from my childhood, are not overwhelmingly tasty).  It's interesting to hear how advanced the food being sent into space is becoming these days.  Also, since the International Space Station is, in fact, international, there is the cultural variety of food to consider.  The Korean astronauts have, of course, invented space kimchi (actually check out this article about it) and the Russian astronauts have some form of space Borscht.

In case you haven't seen the episode, I won't reveal which chef/dish won, but I will say I was a little surprised at the outcome.

oo,