CAPTURING A `CULINARY REVOLUTION'
Duo goes beyond writing cookbook to look at history of ‘modern Korea’
In 2012, years before Squid Game became Netflix's most-watched show of all time, K-pop became a global phenomenon and Atomix placed higher in the World's 50 Best Restaurants list than any other spot in North America, co-authors chef Deuki Hong and writer and editor Matt Rodbard started documenting a “culinary revolution.”
For their first cookbook, Koreatown (Clarkson Potter, 2016), Hong and Rodbard travelled to Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York, interviewing more than 100 Korean American chefs and business owners. In their followup, Koreaworld (Clarkson Potter, 2024), they document the evolution and excitement that's been mounting ever since — both in Korea and the United States.
“The whole journey from 2012 to now has seen such an immense change,” says Rodbard, founding editor of Taste magazine. “The IQ of the diners has just elevated so greatly, and the appreciation for foods beyond the traditional Korean barbecue. That's been a big point of our book — both of our books, to be honest. We wanted them to think about Korean food beyond the tropes that most Americans and other readers know.”
Their “baby mission” with their first book was to inspire more people to embrace their local Koreatowns, says Hong, the chef-owner of the Sunday Family Hospitality Group in San Francisco. Twelve years later, awareness has changed. “A lot of people, and blessfully so, have some touch point — however little, however big — of something Korean, whether that's the food, the culture, the arts. So we got to have a more nuanced conversation about not just Korean food but regional Korean food. And not just about K-pop, but also some artists. So, really diving in. I like to say the difference is that we got to go deeper this time around, and that's always a privilege.”
Hong and Rodbard had hoped to extend their research north of the border to Toronto and Vancouver for Koreaworld, but pandemic travel restrictions thwarted their plans. Even so, they broke unprecedented ground. The book is the first of its kind in English to delve into the food of “modern Korea” — the ever-changing vibrancy of Seoul with regional spotlights on Jeolla-do's Buddhist temple cuisine in the southwest, the subtropical specialties of Jeju Island, “the Hawaii of Korea,” such as black pork and tangerines, and the mountain food of Gangwon-do in the northeast — as well as “the new Koreatown” in the U.S.
Many assume that South Korea, with its population of more than 50 million people, is much larger geographically, says Rodbard. It's roughly the size of the state of Indiana, with an outsized global impact. The excitement around the cuisine is exploding on both sides of the border as flavours and ingredients ride the Korean Wave (Hallyu), popping up in supermarkets and on restaurant menus, regardless of the style of food.
During the pandemic, as Rodbard was wrapping up work on Food IQ (Harper, 2022), which he wrote with chef Daniel Holzman, he and Hong started talking about the trends they noticed. “We soon realized that this book was natural to write because it was framed and centred around the modern Korean diaspora and modern Korean times. And we felt it was the biggest story in food.” Their first order of business was to travel to Korea, which proved to be a challenge during the pandemic.
Photographer Alex Lau travelled with them on several trips over two years, capturing the book's images in situ, shooting many of the recipes with the dish's creator. “It's a book not just about the culture, but the people. And we wanted people to be in the book,” says Rodbard. “This book is not just a cookbook but a real documentary project. It's a cultural history of modern Korea. And to us, that was the most exciting way to do the book.”
Recipes reprinted with permission from Koreaworld: A Cookbook (Clarkson Potter).