The Birth of K-food: History of 20th Century Korean Food

Prof. Dr. Young Ha Joo (Food Anthropology and Food Folklife Studies at the Academy of Korean Studies, ROK)

Lecture

This lectoer aims to examine at how Korean food has changed from the late 19th century to the early 21st century. Using the framework of the formation of global food regimes and the incorporation of the Korean peninsula into them, I will focus on Korean diets and their interactions with global food regimes during the key periods of Korean history since Korea began to open its ports to the outside world. I believe that the food consumed by Koreans today is largely constructed by these six keywords. The five periods of port opening, colonization, war, cold war, and condensed growth were characterized by a process of integrating the Korean peninsula into the world food system. However, in the 1990s, with the spread of globalization, Korean food and food products began to spread to other countries. During this period, Korean food gained international recognition. Since the 2000s, the global popularity of K-pop, K-dramas, and K-movies has encouraged young people around the world to eat and drink like Koreans. Some of the foods consumed by Koreans today may be considered good or bad, depending on the tastes of individuals or communities. While individual or community taste are necessarily subjective, they are also a product of history

About the lecture

Dr. Young-Ha Joo is a Professor of Folklife Studies at the Graduate School of Korean Studies, Academy of Korean Studies (AKS). He earned his Ph.D. in Ethnology (Cultural Anthropology) from Minzu University of China. Dr. Joo is a leading scholar in the field of food humanities, exploring the cultural and historical meanings of food with a focus on Korean cuisine in global context. He is the author of numerous influential books on food history and culture and has translated key texts into Korean. He has also served as a visiting professor in Japan and Canada.