ABSTRACT:

In Anticipation of Global Hansik Campaign?:
Korean Food Abroad from the Colonial Period to the Present
Katarzyna J. Cwiertka (Leiden University, The Netherlands)

At the venue of Korea Food Expo of 2008 the South Korean Minister of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced the ‘Global Promotion of Korean Cuisine Campaign’ a government-led initiative with the goal of turning Korean food (hansik) into one of the five most popular ethnic cuisines in the world by 2017. The campaign took off in full speed in 2009, coordinated by the Korean Cuisine Global Promotion Team (Hansik segyehwa ch’ujindan) with the wife of South Korean President as its honorary chairperson. Although not a governmental body per se, the promotion team was densely populated by high-ranking South Korean officials who frequently issued public statements concerning concrete initiatives to be undertaken to achieve the set goal. Expanding the number of Korean restaurants abroad has been identified as one of the chief strategies of the campaign, coupled with plans to standardize the names, descriptions, and recipes of representative Korean dishes. ‘Food in Korea’ website launched in 2008 by the Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corporation clearly took lead in this respect, identifying ‘Korean Food Top 10’ items, which included kimch’i, pulgogi, pibimpap, naengmyŏn, samgyet’ang, chapchae, sinsŏllo and three broader categories of confectionery and drinks.

The idea of utilizing cuisine as a means of propagating Korean culture began to surface in South Korea at the time of the Seoul Olympics (1988). One of the first venues for disseminating information on Korean food abroad was the quarterly Koreana, published since 1987 with the goal of 'increasing awareness about Korea’s cultural heritage overseas'. While food has only sporadically featured in the journal during the first decade of its existence, after the turn of the twenty first century it has turned into a mainstay of every issue, housed in the regular ‘Cuisine’ column.

Conform to the general character of the journal food-related articles featured in Koreana tend to emphasize the unique characteristics of Korean cuisine, highlighting the time-honored traditions surrounding the production, preparation, and consumption of food in Korea. This also holds true for the bulk of publicity surrounding the Global Hansik Campaign – Korea’s treasured culinary legacy waiting for the world to discover. This emphasis fits neatly with the current South Korean rhetoric of rediscovering national roots, following the infatuation with foreign culinary trends since the early 1990s. The ambition of South Korean government to elevate Korean culture to global supremacy seems to be part of a larger plan for the state to regain leadership in managing consumption practices of its citizens. Moreover, the inclusion of naengmyŏn, the most famous dish of the North, in the pantheon of Korean food to be promoted worldwide by South Korea suggests an additional objective of claiming legitimacy over the authentic Korean culinary tradition.

This paper explores the spread of Korean food outside Korea since the colonial period to the present, focusing on different trajectories of its dissemination, and different agencies and objectives involved in these processes. An attempt will be made to assess continuity and change in the perception of Korean food in different parts of the world in varying historical circumstances. The growing agency of the state in the construction of the concept of ‘Korean Cuisine’ and its dissemination will stand central in the argument.

Katarzyna J. Cwiertka is Associate Professor in Material Culture and Social History of Modern Japan at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her research to date has utilized food as a window into the modern history of Japan and Korea. Cwiertka is the author of Modern Japanese Cuisine: Food, Power and National Identity (Reaktion Books 2006) and Cuisine, Colonialism and Cold War: Food in Twentieth Century Korea (Reaktion Books forthcoming), and co-editor of Asian Food: The Global and the Local (University of Hawaii Press 2002). Her current project entitled "Sustaining Total War: Militarization, Economic Mobilization and Social Change in Japan and Korea (1937-1953)" funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) investigates the impact of war on the consumption practices in postwar Japan and Korea.