South Korea’s First Lady Evangelizing Korean Food in NYC

Korean Beacon was present at a luncheon with the first lady of South Korea, Kim Yoon-Ok. The first lady, famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Moon Bloodgood, a Korean-American actress, and Salvatore Scarlato were cooking up and serving Korean food – pajeon – to American vets of the Korean War. The South Korean president and his wife were in NYC for the U.N. General Assembly. Her coordinated efforts were part of South Korea’s international efforts to globalize Korean food.

The government’s Korean Cuisine to the World campaign began in April, with official goals that include quadrupling the number of Korean restaurants abroad and lifting Korean food into the “top five rank of world cuisines” by 2017. Putting aside that such a ranking system does not exist, the campaign shows how seriously food is now taken by many governments, especially in Asia.



Bang Moon-kyu, a ministry official who is leading the campaign, said that it has about $10 million to spend in 2009, including grants and scholarships for South Koreans to travel and attend culinary school. The campaign has already established a research and development lab devoted to the popular street-food dish called tteokbokki, a garlicky, richly spiced dish of rice cakes bathed in red chili paste. Tteokbokki (pronounced duck-bo-key) got its own festival in March, spinning off from the larger annual Seoul festival of rice cakes, or tteok. “And tteokbokki is only the beginning,” he said.



“First was Chinese food in the U.S., then Japanese and Thai,” said Min Mon-hong, director of tourism for Korea. “Korean is the next big boom.”



Along side Jean-George was his wife, Marja, who happens to be Korean-American herself. “I’ve been teaching him some sauces and marinades,” said Mr. Vongerichten’s wife, Marja. “I think he would do great things with gochujang,” she said, referring to the spicy, fermented paste of ripe red chili peppers that is one of the basic seasonings of the Korean kitchen.



New York seems to be the perfect city to launch Korea’s crusade to evangelize Korean food since it is one of the culinary capitals of the world. However, there’s a lot more to do to reach the goal of putting Korean food on the global map. Let’s hope it gets there!




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