Korean , livre ebook

The Korean: Single and Obese: Then Kimchi Changed Everything
Published by BLACKYOONICORN PRESS
Copyright 2021 by Africa Byongchan Yoon
All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021932545
ISBN (hardcover): 9781662910586
ISBN (paperback): 9781662910593
eISBN: 9781662910609
CONTENTS
Foreword By Marja Vongerichten
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
A Little Bird
Credits
Acknowledgments
About the Author
DEDICATION
For my sweet Korean mommies who showed me that true love in friendship transcends race. I will never forget how you have welcomed me. Thank you for the prayers, ideas, phone calls, introductions, lunches, dinners, late-night texts, recipes, DMs, and more. I love you ummas.
FOREWORD
By Marja Vongerichten
As the culinary influence of Korean cuisines begins to spread globally, so now will we begin to hear stories of the places near and far that it reached. While traditionally the cuisine tells the story of Korean people born in North and South Korea, non-Koreans now will begin to add to the tapestry of what Korean food means to them. Such is the story you are about to read involving a girl from Cameroon who, at age six, eats kimchi for the first time, connects with it as a teen, and then a decade later, it saves her life. The deep impact felt, which keeps the cuisine in her daily life, is the tip of the iceberg as we begin to see just how far the red spice of gochugaru, the Asian pear, and the bubbling flavors of Korean food have traveled.
While born in Korea, I personally discovered my own connection to it much later in my life.
I was born in South Korea, adopted at the age of three, and raised in America by my adopted parents. I always had memories of my time in Korea, but they were faded pieces floating around in my mind. I was able to find my birth mother at the age of 19. From the meal she served me on the first day that we met, after seventeen years of being apart, I realized my connection to Korea was always within me; it was in my taste buds and, from the first bite, a wealth of knowledge flooded back to me-a knowledge that I needed to explore. I became obsessed with every Korean flavor like I was trying to reclaim a memory in my mind through every bite.
Fast-forward to about twenty years later, when I received the opportunity to be the host of a television docuseries for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) called Kimchi Chronicles . It is about my personal story and journey into Korean food and culture. The show aired in 140 countries and gained a long reach-a reach that brings me to 2018 when I started getting positive and encouraging messages from this woman named Africa Yoon.
She contacted me and told me the impact the show had on her life and said she wanted to thank me. We soon became fast virtual friends. Little did I know she was reaching out to me during a difficult time in her life. We remained in touch and, in the summer of 2020, began to communicate more regularly. I was quite impressed with a new Facebook group that Africa started called Korean Cooking Friends. I thought it was such a nice forum to bring about awareness and togetherness about a love for Korean cooking. Africa and I share a mutual passion for Korean food and culture, and it is reflected in the way we live our lives.
In this book, she shares her journey from her younger years with bits and dabbles of Korean elements throughout her life, as the daughter of an ambassador to the United Nations from Cameroon to her deeper knowledge and drive to learn about Korean food and all the advantages and health benefits it can lend to one s overall health. There are many references to Korean words, foods, and customs. You may learn a thing or two!
Africa s journey took me from struggles with her weight, relationships, and her tenacity to get what she wants and without apology. She shares the vulnerability in each facet of her life, from dating to running miles and miles, finding true love, health issues, tremendous loss, and ultimate happiness along the way. This book is a story of love, perseverance, ingenuity, self-reflection, self-help, and a belief in the power of one s own strength and inner compass.
I hope you are inspired just as I was after reading this book. Wishing you well with your dreams, Africa Yoon. As Koreans say... FIGHTING!! (Keep fighting, keep going!)
PREFACE
It all started when that halmoni called me fat in H Mart. I can t believe where I ended up more than a decade later. Today I live in Oahu, Hawaii, and the lessons from that time are still ever-present. Yesterday, I realized it had been a while since I felt my emotions get the best of me. The tears were streaming down my cheeks; they tasted salty as they hit my tongue. Something about the salt and living at the beach made me crave a similar taste to soothe my soul. I grabbed a jar from the top of my kimchi fridge. As my hand clutched the contents, I heard one of my favorite sounds on Earth-the sound of dried seaweed crunching. I intended to make miyeok-guk , a Korean soup that tiptoes behind a Korean woman throughout her life-from the day she gives birth and every birthday until the day she dies. It is said that Korean women are in tune with nature, including the sea. This tradition began when they found out that whales used seaweed to replenish themselves after birth. It was observed that when mother whales gave birth, there was less miyeok -the Korean word for seaweed-in the ocean. The umma whale eats it all up to become strong again, and that is how that tradition began.
After a Korean woman gives birth during a period known as sanhujori , which lasts a month after delivery, she drinks this soup full of calcium and iodine to restore her body. She then drinks it each birthday after, and so do her children, honoring her pain and work in bringing them to Earth.
So how does it come to pass that a woman born in West Central Africa comes to have miyeok-guk as the soup that comforts her soul on a hard day? It was only yesterday, as I reached for it, my face awash with saltwater tears, that I realized my comfort food had become something I was never fed as a young girl. As the salty miyeok hit my tongue and warmed me, I realized Korean food had become more than just a part of my life-it is a thread in my soul. There is only one way that two things can blend together while remaining autonomous; this can only happen with love, which I have in abundance.
1
I called the Green Kitchen Restaurant for dinner. John, the owner, picked up and took my order. I ordered a cheeseburger with bacon. He asked me if there was anything else. Yes, I ll order another cheeseburger for my friend who does not want bacon. There was no friend. Years later, John told me he knew there was no friend because I went from being a skinny girl to the size of two people!
When the burgers arrived, I tipped the delivery man ten dollars; he worked so hard. I warmed the leftover bulgogi from lunch on the gas stove. Bulgogi literally translates in Korean to bul , fire, and gogi , meat. It is the most famous of the Korean BBQ foods. It has a history that stretches back to the Goguryeo era in Korea, which began in 37 BC when it was initially called maekjok and eaten on a skewer. It evolved into what it is now-a thin slice of top sirloin marinated in Asian pear, rice wine, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, and black pepper. After a few hours, the meat dancing with flavor is ready for preparation.
At a Korean restaurant, the marinated meat is brought to you raw. You prepare it on a grill embedded in the center of the table. At home, you can prepare it on the stovetop or a mini grill. (Many Korean families have a mini grill placed in the middle of their own table.) If you don t order enough raw meat at a Korean BBQ restaurant, they prepare it for you in the kitchen and bring it to the table.
I opened the burger, took out the bacon, chopped it, and mixed it in the pan with the bulgogi. Then I took the mixture, wrapped it in a lettuce leaf with some gochujang , and put it back in the burger. The gochujang was sweet with some subtle heat. It s often described as Korean ketchup by people too lazy to tell you what it actually is. It makes everything sing. Gochujang is a fermented chili paste made with Korean chili powder, glutinous rice named chappsal , a fermented soybean powder called meju , malt called yeotgireum, and salt. To call it ketchup insults its traditional history. It was fermented for years in earthenware. Every step of the painstaking process results in turning everything it touches-including my simple burger that night-into a little pocket of Heaven.
Some sauce dripped down my arm; I hadn t even left the kitchen. I was just eating while standing up. I walked to the bathroom past the glossy blood-red walls. I painted the whole living room red at the time because I read to pick a bold color to paint your living room. Lord knows why I chose red, but I regretted it instantly. It felt like the room was trying to attack me. I later found out advertising agencies use red and yellow to attract people to food. My kitchen was yellow. No wonder I got so fat; I had a ketchup-colored living room and a mustard-colored kitchen. Yellow is my favorite color; white is also a favorite color of mine.
Those days I couldn t tell one organ or body part from another. My heart, my lungs, my stomach were all smushed together into one big blob. I walked to the bathroom to wash my face and caught myself in the mirror. Who is that? I h