The Korean Table Adrianne Dow Young

KOREAN TABLE ETIQUETTE

At the Korean table, etiquette is as important as food. Whether you’re at your favorite BBQ restaurant or you’ve been invited home for dinner, to eat authentic Korean food means eating it authentically. Even at its most casual, the Korean dinner table is where the respect you show through manners is king.

Manners make the meal. Universally, food is prepared with the way it will be eaten in mind. Noodles are appreciated differently when eaten quietly. Wine is better had when it is attentively poured by someone else.

Everything has its place. It seems like those little side dishes (banchan) set down in a clinking blur are random, but each type of dish belongs to a specific spot on the table, and people sit based on age and rank.

Drinking is an art. There are few countries in the world where the drinking history and culture has its own Wikipedia page. Take drinking just as seriously as eating.

Utensils are people too. The Korean use of utensils is specific and unique. Consider utensils as silent dinner guests who want to stay clean and don’t want to be sucked on or bashed against bowls.

Korean Table Etiquette Tips and Suggestions

You might be at a more formal table than you realize. When you sit down, look at who is seated furthest away from the front door–that seat is for the person of honor. If you hear someone say the phrase, “Jal mukkessebubnida (I will eat well)“ to the person at the head of the table, that’s a good indication that you are at a more formal meal than simply hanging around the grill. In that case, wait until the person at the head of the table starts eating before you even pick up a utensil. Pace your meal to the head of the table’s and finish just as or just after he or she finishes.

Get in, get out. When you select your food from one of the communal dishes, use precise movements and pick the most convenient piece of meat or kimchi. Hovering over and picking through communal dishes isn’t going to show you in the finest light.

Give your food its space. Show reverence for your rice and leave the bowl on the table. Bringing your rice and soup bowl to your mouth sends the wrong message. The kimchi has a home on the back row, meat dishes on the right, sauces in the middle, and vegetables on the left. Hand dishes to people who are out of reach and have them do the same. Your table orientation is based on the person sitting furthest from the front door.

Keep Utensils Separated. Need some rice? Put down the chopsticks to the right of the spoon and pick up the spoon. Want some kimchi? Put down the spoon to the left of the chopsticks. The spoon and chopsticks do not want to be in your hand at one time.

Drink well together. Watch the level of your companions’ cups and pour their drinks as soon as the cup is empty. They will do the same in return. Pour drinks using your right hand and gently support the pouring wrist with your left hand. Receive drinks in the same manner.

Korean Table Etiquette Facts

Family and dining are one. “Shikgu” the Korean word for “family” means "mouths to feed.”

Where manners go out the window. Online Korean eating shows (mokbang ) blithely highlight many of the taboos of the table and are a celebrated and profitable form of entertainment. A show host can make as much as 9K in a month.

Chopsticks and taboo. At funerals, the dead are offered bowls of rice with chopsticks stuck vertically in the rice, which is why one never leaves their chopsticks in their rice bowl at the dinner table.

Silver Chopsticks. Korean chopsticks are stainless steel because royalty used silver chopsticks. Blackened silver was an indication that they had been exposed to poison.

Side Dishes. The number of banchan (side dishes) served at the table is largely based on the formality of the meal. 3 being the minimum and 12 being court-style. Regardless of how many side dishes are served, one of them will be Kimchi.

People

Hooni Kim is the first chef to win a Michelin star for a US Korean restaurant. Beomfreeca the most popular mokbang host, has over 600,000 subscribers and nearly 220 million views.

Anthony Bourdain said about Korean food, “It’s the next—it was long ago the next thing—but to a great extent, the chefs that are driving the development of what we would call American cuisine are, to a greater and greater extent, Korean American. “

Chef Massimo Bottura makes a kimchi lasagne

Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo told Korean President Park Geun-hye ”I often eat Korean food.”

PLACES

Portland, Oregon hosts MukJa! possibly the world’s hippest food festival LA and NYC are two of the largest epicenters for Korean food in the US.

Soup Alley (Eungam-dong Gamja) in Seoul. Where you can get pork backbone soup (Gamjatang) 24-hours a day.

Northern Lights Restaurant in Barrow Alaska is the most Northern Korean restaurant in the US.

Seoul was home to the largest Kimchi making session in the world. 3,000 kimchi makers. 250 tons.

For Plank Media