A Trip to Hmart: Eats Edition

I bought Choco Pies (but not quite a hundred,
unlike in this episode of the 2007 drama Thank You).

Because my recent trip to HMart was just too much excitement for one post, I give you further exploits from the road.

A Trip to Hmart: Stuff Edition

One of my favorite things about Kdrama is how much attention it pays to the little details of life—how people eat, sleep, and even use the bathroom. Most shows leave me longing for more information, but as a resident of rural New England I haven’t had much chance for reconnaissance.

My curiosity about material culture in Korea has occasionally led me to the website of Hmart, an “asian-inspired supermarket” in America that carries many of the things that appear in Korean dramas, from aluminum ramyun pans to traditional Chinese medicines. But I only realized a few weeks ago that Hmart actually has a number of brick-and-mortar locations throughout America, including one that’s just over two hours from where I live.

I told myself it was silly to drive that far to visit what’s essentially a grocery store (especially when I’m a notoriously terrible cook), but I finally broke down this week when my mother mentioned wanting to go to a specific mall store that happens to be in the same direction as Hmart. I hijacked her trip...and spent so much time trawling Hmart’s aisles that we never did make it to the store she wanted to visit. (Sorry, Mom!)

Food Stuff

After a year of glutting on Korean dramas, one of the things I’ve gotten used to is how differently food is perceived there. My country is full of food-porny entertainments: there are multiple 24-hour TV channels devoted to food, and every bookstore is full to the rafters with glossy, gorgeously photographed cookbooks and culinary magazines. But when it comes to storytelling, food is largely on the back burner here. It’s literally possible to watch entire seasons of a American television shows without ever seeing a character eat a full meal.

In Korea, it’s a different story. Sure, foodie-specific shows like Kimchi Family dwell on eating. But good luck finding a single episode of any show—from family melodramas to action adventures to trendy romantic comedies—that doesn’t feature at least one dinner-table conversation.

The whole attitude toward food in Korea dramas is completely different from what I see everyday at home—here, eating is a complicated love-hate experience for most people, a reductive game of “I can’t eat that because it has nitrates” or “I only eat locally sourced, fair-trade organic ketchup.” Instead of loving food, we live in a culture that has taught us to fear it, and maybe even turned it into Frankenfoods that we really should fear.

On the other hand, in a Korean dramas, “eating well” is a compliment. People say things like “eat lots!” (and seem to genuinely mean it). Food is praised for its health benefits, and a sign of true love is harping the object of your affection about the evils of skipping meals. At the end of the day, when an American television show might feature a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, good little Korean daughters-in-law cut up platters of fruit to be shared by the whole family.

Maybe it’s because food insecurity is a more endemic and recent (or current) concern in much of Asia. Maybe it’s because the earthly, identifiable ingredients used in traditional Asian medicine predispose Asian cultures to see food for its curative properties. For whatever reason, it’s clear that Korea is in the throes of a serious love affair with food—long may it last, in spite of the terrors of Western eating habits, globalization, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin’ Donuts, and TGI Friday’s.

As someone who once had to call her mother for advice about how to make the kind of crescent rolls sold in tubes at the grocery store, I don’t have a lot to offer as a blogger on this front. I don’t cook much that requires more than three or four ingredients, and the full gamut of my experience with Korean food involves about ten trips to the local Korean restaurant. (All very yummy, might I add.) What I do have, however, are mad Google skills and a desire to understand just those Kdrama folks are eating. So I give you a brief collection of foodie links, all inspired by memorable dishes I’ve seen in Korean dramas.

Black Bean Noodles (jjajangmyun)

As seen Coffee Prince (and every other drama ever)

In spite of looking outrageously gross, this is probably the Kdrama staple I’d most like to try. I’m told that it’s gooey, salty, noodley goodness, which sounds like my dream dish.

Read more at:

Kdramafood

Maangchi

Live octopus (Sannakji)

As seen in My Lovely Sam Soon

Go figure, but this dish hasn’t come up much in my drama watching. But even six years after the first time I watched My Lovely Sam Soon, I couldn’t quite forget it. The octopus isn’t actually alive—just wiggly thanks to a nervous system on the fritz. (The first link below includes a related video that made me want to die, quite frankly.)  And lest any Westerner get too grossed out by this, may I remind you that we traditionally eat something that really is alive? Raw oysters are actually considered inedible if they’re dead. (As a good New Englander, I personally prefer my oysters in chowder...or maybe as crackers.)

Read more at:

The Daily Kimchi

The Asian Persuasion

The Irreverent Traveller

  

Shaved Ice (Patbingsu)

As seen in Coffee Prince

This reminds me of the Snoopy snow cone doghouse of my childhood, only on crack. It’s full of random ingredients ranging from condensed milk to fruit cocktail to beans.  I’m not a big fan of sweets, but I’d go there.

Read more at:

Grrrl Traveler 

Serious Eats—Making patbingsu and Restaurant patbingsu

  

Seaweed Rice Rolls (kimbap)

As seen in City Hunter (and every drama ever)

Greatest Love was one of the first Korean dramas I watched, and my mind was slightly blown by the scene in which the heroine sat on her living room floor, casually making the kimbap she’d bring to work for lunch the next day. My instant, I’m-so-stupid-it-hurts response: “She’s making that like it’s no big deal, like it’s a peanut butter sandwich or something.” Which, of course, it is—to her. I once went to a sushi making party with some American friends, and it involved a lot of torn seaweed and the eventual eating of rice out of bowls (with spoons). But to someone from Korea, making this standard lunch item probably really is like me making peanut butter and jelly: so familiar it involves more muscle memory than actual thought.

Read more at:

Smoky Wok

Eating and Living

Grrrl Traveler

Kimchi

As seen in…every drama ever. Literally.

Clearly, kimchi is the equivalent of the male lead in Korea’s love affair with food. A traditional dish eaten three meals a day, it still seems to be primarily made at home. (If dramas are anything to judge by, anyway—I can only think of one instance when a sad little drama character said his mom had the audacity to buy kimchi instead of make it herself.)

I’m a wuss when it comes to spicy food, so I’ve only had kimchi once or twice. Dramas like Kimchi Family have made me want to change that, though.

Read more at:

Electric Ground

Steamy Kitchen

Kdrama food

Spicy rice cakes (dukbokie)

As seen in Baby-Face Beauty (and every other drama ever)

This was one of the first kdrama dishes that I really took notice of—at least partially because I couldn’t figure out what the heck it was. In America, rice cakes are utterly flavorless dried pucks of puffed rice people eat when they’re dieting, and look absolutely nothing like dukbokie. At first I thought something was mistranslated and the characters were actually eating squid, which is something of a dead wringer for the cylindrical rods of jiggly rice cake usually shown in this dish.

When I finally tried dukbokie myself I liked the chewy rice cakes a lot, but the sauce was so spicy it made smoke come out of my ears, cartoon-style. The world is apparently full of people who like this sensation, but I’m not one of them.

Read more at:

Open to Grace

Chuck in Korea

Serious Eats

Spicy Chicken Feet (dalk bal)

As seen in Coffee Prince (and every other drama ever)

Call me faint of heart, but I know where those feet have been. Why would I ever want to put them in my mouth? And did I mention that they’re so hot people usually wear plastic gloves before even touching them?

Yet…why did some Westerner decide a thousand years ago that we don’t eat chicken feet? Or fish with heads still attached? Or larvae? (Okay. Whoever decided that last one is cool with me.)

Read more at:

Hi Expat 

Zen Kimchi