About Korean Food

Traditionally, Korean food consists of rice, soup, and 'banchan' which means side dish.
Just as If you go to McDonald's and order a set, you'll get a hamburger, a coke, and French fries, 

Korean food is always a set.

Then what is 'banchan'?
From the Korean perspective, it seems to be 'everything you can eat with rice.'
For example, sausages or spam are not Korean food, but they can be easy and delicious banchans if you grill them and put them on a plate.

 

 

From 'Sungkyunkwan Scandal'(K-drama)

 

I mentioned that rice, soup, and banchans are a set as 'traditional'.
The reason I emphasized tradition is that our ancestors before the Korean War originally ate a meal with one table per person as shown in the pictures. It is called 'bansang'. As a set of personal, rice, soup, and banchans, the name was different depending on the number of banchans.

However, it was very difficult to make a private table right after the war, so it became 'New Normal' for the whole family to eat on the table.

As such, budae jjigae (mixed stew using spam from the U.S. military) was created, and food culture was created in which people put a large pot in the middle of the table and everyone eats it together.

 

From Boomerang Family 2016 Movie

Personally, I prefer the traditional 'bansang' culture because it's more hygienic (especially in Corona Time).
and also because we are American♥ Korean couple, we serve ourselves.

But sometimes when I go to my parents' house and eat my mom's food with my family, there is no such a warm and happy feeling like that.

 

In fact, it takes a lot of work to prepare Korean food properly.

Kimchi, vegetables, meat, soup, and rice... etc. There are so many things to wash, cook, and prepare.
So I made a lot of one-menu foods such as stew+rice, curry rice, fried rice, etc last year.
This year, I should try to eat healthy by increasing the proportion of banchans of vegetables.

 

 

 

References

1 From 'Sungkyunkwan Scandal'(K-drama)

2 www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gnedu.net%2FkemLecture%2FajaxKemDataList.do%3Fclas_div_type%3D3%26lvl1_clas_cd%3D3%26lvl2_clas_cd%3D3%26lvl3_clas_cd%3DTEC3001%26lvl4_clas_cd%3D10%26lvl6_clas_cd%3D201%26lvl8_clas_cd%3D3&psig=AOvVaw2EsGdiklDVLPNkV4tOYMf_&ust=1609998291991000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCPiyra7Rhu4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

3 From Boomerang Family 2016 Movie