Host Peter J. Kim looks at Korean-American food culture—with chef Roy Choi, comedian Margaret Cho, and his mom (!)—in all its stinky, fermented, fishy beauty.
Host Peter J. Kim looks at Korean-American food culture—with chef Roy Choi, comedian Margaret Cho, and his mom (!)—in all its stinky, fermented, fishy beauty.
Referenced in this episode:
Peter J. Kim: Yo, yo, what's going on? I'm Peter J. Kim, and this is Counterjam, the new podcast on Food52's podcast network that explores culture through food and music. Each episode's gonna focus on one cultural identity, and on this first episode, we are talking Korean food. Kimchi jjigae, favorite instant ramen hacks, and the joys of having a stinky refrigerator with chef Roy Choi, comedian Margaret Cho, and one of my favorite people on the planet, my mom. In between we'll be spinning some tunes from Korean American artists, including one song from yours truly. That's right. And to kick things off, we'll listen to a song by CLARA, a wildly talented Korean American artist I discovered on YouTube. And this song is just so damn danceable. So turn the volume up and enjoy "My Kinda Lovin" by CLARA.
(musical interlude)
Peter: That was "My Kinda Lovin" by CLARA. Check her out on YouTube at CLARA The Artist, and I definitely recommend checking out the music video for that song because it's pretty amazing. Before we dive into things, I wanted to introduce myself. Hi. I'm Peter. I'm Korean American, born and raised in small town Illinois. I live in Brooklyn now, and I head up food content at Pinterest. And as some of you may know, before that, I led the team that created the Museum of Food and Drink here in New York City.
I'm also an amateur (emphasis on the amateur) musician. I sing, I play guitar. I did the whole Korean violin and piano thing growing up, and many moons ago I used to MC, DJ, and produce beats here and there. You'll hear on example of that later in this episode, I promise. All of this goes to show I am so excited about kicking off this show, which brings together two of my favorite things in the world: food and music. I don't know about you folks, but my dream evening is being with friends, enjoying a nice dinner, letting the wine flow, and listening to good music.
Now, the focal point of Counterjam is culture and identity. So I figured it'd be appropriate to start off looking at my own food culture in all of its stinky, fermented, fishy beauty: Korean food. I talked to star chef Roy Choi of Kogi Barbecue and the Chef Show about a situation involving Korean food where, shall we say, the odorous got in the way of the amorous?
Roy Choi: Let me first preface it by this. I was aware of the smells of my home and the dead fish hanging from my trees from a very from a very (Peter laughing) early age, so I consciously didn't bring a lot of people over. But then, at a certain point, you know, that levee breaks and you just gotta bring some friends over, you know? And so I remember the first time I brought a few friends over, and this girl that I really liked, and things were going pretty good with me and her and her friend and everything. And, you know, I was on the verge of, you know, like, you know, making a breakthrough. I was only like, 14, you know? But I was on the verge of, like, feeling good about myself. And then the day I brought them in my house, we're gonna kick it in the room and everything. And I opened the door and my mom was making cheonggukjang at that time. And for those of you don't know, that's fermented dirty ass armpit fuckin' under the scrotum inside the asshole fermented soybean shit, (Peter laughing very loudly) you know, and that thing just...it's like, if skunk was a soup, it would be like, it gets into everything. Every fiber of your hair, your clothes, the furniture, and you can't you can't get...there's no way there's no potpourri or or air freshener that can, like, cut through this.
Peter: You got cockblocked by a stinky soup.
Roy: I did, man. And the tough thing is, is like, it all came...the way that our house was, and I think my mom had the heater on, and the way that our house was, when you open the front door, all of the smell of the house funneled through the front door. And, uh, yeah, it was...that was my first experience. I looked back, and it was like a movie. I looked back and I saw their face. There was four of us, there was three of them. And I saw their faces, and I just--it felt like slow motion, and their faces just turned from like...yeah, it was just, it was the most--
Peter (joking): "Uh, yeah, I've got like a hair appointment. Uh, I gotta, like, run. So, uh..."
Roy: Yeah. It was the most horrifying face I have ever seen, but, um, yeah. It was definitely a Blumhouse horror movie.
Peter: By the way, Roy, that's gonna be like, the first line of your--the next memoir you write, which will be, "I was aware of the smells of my house and the dead fish hanging from my trees."
Roy: Yeah, that's gonna be on my tombstone.
Peter (laughing) There you go.
Roy: Uh, outside of that, I didn't have many personal experiences. You know, I've been with friends and stuff where you know, I take my friends to go get haircuts because they're cheaper at a lot of Korean places. And what happens is in the elevator, like some of the older ladies, they burp, and that shit just fills up the elevator. Or when you get your hair cut, and then the lady was just making kimchi before, you know, whatever. And then, like, she's cutting your hair and then, like, the fingertips smell like kimchi. Things like that. And then, you know, so a lot of that type of little stuff that you grew up with that that you kind of like don't really notice because it's like second nature. Then when you introduce a friend to it for the first time, they're like, "What the fuck?"
Peter: When you talk about it, I'm like, I've got, like, this memory of burps and like, fingers that come through my...
Roy: Burps and fingers. That's a good name for a restaurant too. Burps and Fingers.
Peter: There you go. There you go. Um, also my my next hip hop album. But yeah, no, I also I came to realization in my adulthood about fruit, and that I realized that for all of my childhood, my fruit tasted like garlic, and it was like, my apple slices always had, like a garlic taste to it. And once I realized that I should be cutting my fruit on like a separate cutting board, it, like, opened up the world to me loving fruit in a whole new way because I just realized I'd been having like this like, garlicky ass fruit my entire life. Because we use the same cutting board for kimchi--
Roy: Again. All of us Asian kids grow up with that type of stuff, whether, you know, you're Southeast Asian and, you know, your your cereal bowls taste like fish, fish sauce, or Korean and your fruit tastes like kimchi. My milkshakes used to taste like kimchi because, you know, that would be where they puree everything. And then, you know you can't wash that flavor out, that smell out. So then you just grab it, you pour and and make a milkshake, and you're like, "Oh..."
Peter: (laughing) Oh yeah, but you don't, I mean, like, you don't know any better. I mean, at least when I was a kid, that's just how it was. You know, my oranges taste kind of garlic.
Peter: (voiceover) Next up, Margaret Cho, who for me is perhaps one of the most influential Asian American comics of all time. She laid the foundation for Asian American comedy back when there weren't that many of us in the game. It turns out she's a pretty mean cook. So we started things out by talking about dolsot bibimbap, which is a classic Korean dish with an array of vegetables, meat, a sunny side up egg and gochujang, all served in a screaming hot stone bowl, which gives the rice a crunchy edge that we call nurungji. Here's how Margaret rocks her dolsot.
Margaret Cho: Well, I do the dolsot with any kind of vegetables that I have, which depends on what I'm getting but usually like zucchini and carrot. And that's just really fried with a little bit of toasted sesame oil and then mushrooms with a little bit of ganjang. And then I'll put in like a different mix of meat. So I'll either do the Ninja foodie jangjorim, which--
Peter: What is the Ninja Foodie jangjorim?
Margaret: That's a recipe that I developed because I think that I like jangjorim, but it's also like so tough to me when it's just boiled. So you know, you, like, soak it and then boil out like...kind of, I didn't like the texture. So I've done jangjorim sous vide...
Peter: And actually, for our listeners, could you just actually explain what jangjorim is?
Margaret: Jangjorim is a braised meat. It's braised beef, like, it's almost like a preserved beef in soy sauce, but it's not exactly preserved. It's just, um, salty, super salty. And it's a banchan, and you usually--which is a side dish for Korean food. And you usually eat it cold, actually, but I found it just to be tough, and I could never get the texture of my halmoni's jangjorim, which was perfect, with the shishito peppers, and everything was perfect. And so I decided to do it sous vide, and I--
Peter: Oh nice.
Margaret: Then--which is good, and then, but then the Ninja Foodie, the pressure cooker seems to work really well, but then I can't get the jangjorim smell out of the ceramic pot, so it's got to be like a dedicated...I could do galbijjim, I can do anything in a soy sauce base, so I could probably do an adobo in the Ninja foodie now, but it's useless now for anything else.
Peter: I already have my set of jars and containers that are like kimchi only, because you can't put anything else in there that you don't want to taste like kimchi when it comes out.
Margaret: Well, everything, I think that I'm at the stage now where I would have to get a separate kimchi refrigerator. I don't even know where that would go. But, I mean, I'm so Korean. I have a skincare, a K-beauty refrigerator for my Korean skincare. (laughing) So I should have a, you know, a kimchi--I mean, there are really fancy kimchi refrigerators you can get.
Peter: Ah yes, the Korean American refrigerator. You've got your all-American staples: milk, eggs, orange juice and the like. But then you've got the Korean, shall I say, funk?
Margaret: They would empty out the Skippy jars and then put deer blood in there. (laughing) So, like, you know, you just could not have kids, like white kids from school open the refrigerator. They could come over, but they couldn't open the refrigerator because it was just like the kimchi and the deer blood, but in Skippy jars, it's like, really terrifying.
Peter: I can totally relate to this. Opening a fridge in a Korean American household is like a game of refrigerator Punk'd. That container might say yogurt on it, but chances are 50 50 that there's actually yogurt in there. Not only that, but at least where I grew up, Korean American homes almost always had a kimchi fridge out in the garage. I talked to an expert on the kimchi fridge, a wonderful, brilliant woman named Young Ja Kim, aka my mom, aka, as we say in Korean, Ummaaaaaa!
Young Ja: And your house would smell like kimchi, and so we have to keep the kimchi separate from the kitchen refrigerator, and we also pickled a lot.
Peter: My mom was born before the Korean War, so of course, she didn't exactly grow up with a refrigerator in the garage. I asked her how my grandma used to make kimchi back in Korea.
Young Ja: We buy cabbage and radish from the farm because it's fresher that way. Bring it home, wash it with water, and then we will brine it with salt overnight. Uh, make sure that it's mixed well, and next day we will make a filling to make this kimchi with, uh, radish, ginger, lots of garlic, red pepper flakes, ginger--oh, I said the ginger, and fish sauce, salt, and mix it all together. And we will put that between each leaf of the cabbage, and just store it in the big urn and dig the hole in the ground and store it there so it doesn't get frozen, because we did not have any refrigerator at the time. And then cover it with dried, um, dried, uh, leaves or branches so it doesn't freeze, and each meal, we will go down there and pick one up. And it would taste like, very tangy, very carbonated, very cold, very good.
Peter: (voiceover) You know, I've come to think of that kimchi fridge as something of a portal back home. That humming white box in the garage is the modern American version of earthenware jars of kimchi buried underground. And so it goes. Traditions change, but in many ways their essence stays intact. Margaret's family certainly held onto a lot of traditions, too.
Margaret: Every time we went on a vacation, which would be like, because I grew up in San Francisco, so we'd go to like, Yosemite or something like that. They would--that would actually be like a grocery trip, because they would be foraging for different things like fernbrake. You know, gosari, and getting river rocks to use to smash garlic to do all sorts of things. So a lot of it was like this foraging trip, or even if, like, they were going to Golden Gate Park, they would pick things that--I don't even know what they are, and then they would wind up in banchan. So a lot of the, sort of like, any kind of excursion had to do with the gathering of food. Because they're, my family is like...really, they're really like, village. They're, like, really, like, not Seoul people, not even Busan people. I don't even know where (laughing). It's like the--
Peter: In the soap opera, in the soap opera they're in the village, like the thatched roofs.
Margaret: And yeah, we're like the square in the middle where the house is sort of around and everybody's sitting on the sort of edge of those like, they're almost like porches. But there--it's very old fashioned, so...and then they actually made jang, so they made a doenjang and gochujang, which--doenjang to me, it takes a year. I don't think I have the patience, and you've got to tie up the bricks, and it's so much.
Peter: Oh yeah. I mean, that's why I always get annoyed when people totally equate miso and doenjang, because it's just a very different process.
Margaret: It's different. I mean, I think that it's like maybe--to somebody to just say, "Well, it's just a fermented bean paste." But it's just actually quite a lot more involved. I mean, doenjang is so...then the flavor is really reflected. It's very deep and subtle.
Peter: (voiceover) And if you know Margaret's comedy, then you definitely know Margaret's mom.
Peter: One of your classic bits is, of course, doing an impression of your mom. You know, I still--I still laugh my ass off, thinking of you, going, "Moraaaaan!" (laughing) I mean people must shout that to you on the street.
Margaret: Yes, it's great, it's great. That's my Korean name, Cho Moran, which is actually kind of uncommon. Usually it's Mi-ran in Korea. But Moran is the way that my dad wanted to do it, Moran. But it's hard growing up as a kid in the seventies with a name that sounds like moron, you know? (laughing) It sucked.
Peter: I think about like, especially in the Korean accent. One of my favorite parts is the "hhhhuh" (back of the throat sound) You know what I mean?
Margaret: (hhhh) (laughing) Yaaaa, ya! Yeah, you know, like they just use it. It's almost like accents in Chinese. They do the the emphasis on the-- it's sort of to denote a, kind of, I think, a largesse of what's happening. The, um, the drama is enhanced by the "Hhhhhhuh!"
Peter: Oh yeah, and the eyes get smaller as the "Hhhh" gets more intense, right? And you kind of get the head tilt too.
Margaret: It's always like, (making exaggerated Korean sounds and laughing)! And then you see it a lot like, I mean, how they just use it because, uh, Korean is really mostly active in, like, active listening, and so that you'll hear like, "Hohhhhhh, ohhhhhh," like when you're talking, they actively receive your words by, "Hohhhhh." And so it's really--it's very active. Yeah.
Peter: So I saw that you had written into Angry Asian Man, which is this great blog, and you had written something that really resonated with me. You said, "I am angry that I was bullied for having dried squid in my lunchbox, the kimchi fermenting in my childhood home scared and repulsed my white friends. But now white people are all obsessed with Asian food because Anthony Bourdain, rest in peace, told them it was good." And you've said parenthetically, "I must clarify that I love Anthony Bourdain. It's just that no one liked our food until a white guy told them it was good." So, that really, you know, resonated with me. And I want you to unpack that a little bit. What was sort of behind what you what you wrote there?
Margaret: Well, I think it's really like that, remember? You know, growing up and being really embarrassed about what I would bring for school. And, um, you know, the kinds of foods that other kids had. They had, like, Hostess and like Twinkies, and like they would have like a Coke, a full-sized Coke wrapped in tinfoil and all this stuff.
Peter: Oh my god.
Margaret: And, you know, we would never, ever get anything like that. I mean, the most Western maybe would be, um, the potato salad with apple in it, and egg, which is kind of a Korean potato salad. So it was deeply embarrassing. And then now cut to now, well, you know, when Anthony Bourdain was alive, his picture would be at the front of Beverly Sundubu, which is a very famous, um, sundubu restaurant. And, um, you know, they treat, they sort of treated, like, him as kind of like this messenger of Korean food. Him and Jonathan Gold, I think, and Andrew Zimmern, all really were talking about how great Korean food was. Go beyond barbecue, go beyond kalbi and bulgogi, and let's go into the stews and the soups and the things that are really, I think, the heart of Korean cooking, which is so good. I'm glad, because they really got a lot of business from it. But it's like, they never believed us when we were kids, that it was good. (laughing)
Peter: Oh, I know. And you know, it's funny. I think, you know, that you're right, that the tide has started to turn on this, but it's funny, and I was just talking to my mom, and my mom had a knee replacement surgery recently. And so she is now going through physical therapy, and her physical therapist comes, you know, every few days to come help her recover. And she told me the other day that "Oh, I can't eat kimchi tonight and I can't eat kimchi tomorrow because the physical therapist is coming tomorrow. And I don't want to offend him." And this is classic. My parents are always like, they're always--before they eat kimchi, they do like a mental checklist of "Who am I going to see in the next 24 hours? And are there any sensitive, delicate, non-Korean, like, noses that are going to be offended by this?"
Peter (voiceover): I asked my mom about this.
Young Ja: Physical therapist. His name is Robert. He asked me, Would I make kimchi and do I eat kimchi? (laughing) I told him, "Yes, I do make kimchi. But I didn't eat it last night and today, because I'm seeing you for treatment." He goes, "Oh, you didn't have to do that. You know, I don't mind." Maybe he was polite.
Peter: Yeah, well, you know, if you think about it, I don't, I imagine that a lot of say, German American families don't stop and think, "Oh, I'm not gonna eat sauerkraut today because there's, you know, I'm worried about offending somebody." You know, where do you think that this idea of kind of avoiding kimchi when you're seeing non-Koreans, like, comes from?
Young Ja: Well, you know, I know it smells, and it has garlic in it. And I just don't want to, you know, come across as a smelly Korean to other people. It's just etiquette. And I still keep it that way.
Margaret: I think for my family too there was, you know, this kind of thing of like, my dad has no accent whatsoever. And they went through this period, I think in the eighties of, like, really aspirational whiteness, where they really wanted to try to not sort of appear Asian. So, like, my dad had a had a job where he was the auditor at an insurance firm. So he had to watch everyone. So it was kind of this weird thing of like, he wanted to be sort of very friendly appearing, so they wouldn't, um, kind of like, you know, he wouldn't be so othered as being Asian, and also being the auditor. So there was this thing of, you know, like, being very careful about the smells and the sort of arena that you're going to be in after you've eaten kimchi.
Peter (voiceover): Times have changed and kimchi is more accepted now, but there's still plenty of stigma to go around. Not too long ago, I remember something that happened at an office I worked at. I brought in some kimchi jjigae, a kimchi stew for lunch, and I heated it up in the kitchen. Within a matter of minutes, there was a hubbub around the entire building. People were opening windows and talking loudly about how it smelled like a rat had died in the kitchen. I mean, I get the kimchi is smelly, but really, a dead rat? In that moment, I felt profoundly uncomfortable. And damn, isn't it a tragedy when you feel shame about your food? Something so intrinsic to who you are?
Peter: Next up, we're going to chat with Chef Roy Choi coming up after this. But first, we're going to listen to a tune by the talented Korean American rapper DANakaDAN. Dan was adopted into a non Korean family, and his music explores the complex issues of identity that rise out of that. You can learn more about him and his story by looking up DANakaDAN on YouTube. This song has a dope steady groove, and it's called "Escape from L.A."
(musical interlude)
Peter: Alright, let's talk about a dish that I think lies at the heart and soul of Korean cuisine, and in my mind, how you prepare this dish is a window into your soul. Instant ramyun! Oh, I get all tingly just thinking about it. A fried noodle cake, a packet of soup powder, a packet of dried vegetables. It's perfection in a few packets. If you're Korean American and you're listening to this, you know you can probably make this in your sleep. I talked to star chef Roy Choi and asked him if he liked eating instant ramyun.
Roy Choi: Yeah, I've always called it like, our peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You know, for a lot of Asian, especially Korean American kids, Asian American kids, it's the--it's the one thing you could grab at any time. Middle of the night, college, growing up, after school, breakfast, whatever it is, um, and again, as easy as making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich would be for us, opening the packet, boiling the water. The three minute--you know, there's certain terminologies within it that are ingrained in our in our upbringing, and in our consciousness as Korean American and Asian American kids. Like, three minutes, noodles before, before sauce packet, or sauce packet before noodles. It's like, uh, also, you know, like, don't overcook the noodles, and then it's like--I think it's like the first time a lot of kids learn how to cook, with the chopstick, and it's like, literally that one moment where you kind of twirl it around and disperse the powder. It's almost like you feel like you've done something, you know, even if you've never done anything in your life, you know, and it's a good confidence booster for-- (laughing) for the, you know, the psyche and the human spirit of a lot of Asian American kids.
Peter: I mean, what's cool is like, yeah, it's just like you said. It's kind of like a training wheels, like, cooking moment, for people who're just getting started. But it's dish that grows with you. So even if you become an accomplished chefs such as yourself, you could still...you can still rock instant ramyun.
Roy: Well, I've taking it everywhere from adding cheese to it, you know, slices of American cheese, all the way to making it into a full-blown restaurant-level dish. Um, whether it's morphing it into things like budae jjigae, you know, or or just making it its own, you know, thing by adding rice cakes, scallions, sesame seeds, little drizzle of sesame oil, different types of herbs and vegetables inside. And, you know, things like that, different hot sauces. But there's so many different ways, especially coming from L.A., you know, like, there's the whole culture of adding hot sauce and Tapatio to your instant ramen, uh, grinding chicharrones inside of it. Um, the number one most basic hack is always like adding cheese to it. You know? Um, and I put a version of that in my book, and I also did some demos. Like, you can find it online. You just Google, like instant ramen with cheese. Um, but yeah, that's the most basic hack right there.
Peter: Yeah, one of my favorite uses of American cheese with instant ramyun--first of all, for me, it's pretty much always Shin Ramyun. I mean, I'll mess around with some of the other ones, but I always come back home to Shin Ramyun. But it's, um, I'll take a bowl, and I could do this, like with my eyes closed. But I'll, you know, open the powder packet, put it into the bowl, and then I will take an egg, separate out the yolk and drop the yolk into the bowl. And then I'll leave an American--a slice of American cheese or two into that bowl, and then cook the noodles, get them, you know, al dente, and then simmer the egg white with that, and then pull the whole thing out, and then just drop that into that bowl. And the heat and the noodle water come together with the egg yolk and the American cheese to make...sort of like a carbonara-like sauce. And it's more of like a dry...it's more like a dry application of instant of instant ramyun, and so like...but it makes this amazing creamy sauce of just like, the yolk and the American cheese and the powder. And then my pièce de résistance is taking the dried veg and dropping that on top for a little textural note and just leaving it dried.
Roy: Wow. I'm gonna try that. I'm gonna try that after this pod, I got a pack of Shin Ramyun.
Peter: Do it.
Roy Choi: Yeah, I understood what you said. Egg yolk on the bottom with the packet, and just the the hot noodles, and then mix it, yeah, like a carbonara.
Peter: Yeah. Whatever water is clinging to the noodles is gonna give it enough to just kind of, like, give it that, like, sauciness.
Roy: That's smart.
Peter: Give it a whirl. And the, the upside of that is, you can also eat it extremely quickly. I mean, I can already eat a bowl of, like, soup instant ramyun really quickly, but when there's no soup involved, it's just like...
Roy: Yeah, probably like three gulps. You could finish the whole bowl.
Peter: I actually just ate a bowl before our interview, I have to admit. I did just a big ass nob of butter in at the end, which, like, that's pretty outstanding.
Roy: That's a good one. So you want to rank 5 to 10 ramyuns for you? So Shin is at the top. Shin regular is at the top for you.
Peter: Yeah, yeah, I would say Shin is at the top. I like Neoguri, and then if I have to go, um...if I have to go non-
Roy: Let's do top five dead or alive. So you got Shin and Neoguri. What's three?
Peter: I'm like, I'm definitely, like a Nongshim fanboy, so I would actually say Chapagetti is right up there after that. And then if I have to go, like, non-spicy, I like Sapporo Ichiban. Um, and then, you know what? Like I don't--I don't know any particular ones, but like those, like, Indonesian ones that are, like, they have, like, all kinds of, like, I mean, at least for me, who's less familiar with the cuisine, it's like just a more interesting, uh, flavor profile. So what about you?
Roy: Mine, it's very similar. I would say, you know, the same with Shin. I like a Jin ramyun as well.
Peter: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Roy: Uh, but I mix it up in between, like, I would say, like, two and four are Cup Ramen. And Cup Ramens aren't that popular. But again, I'm from L.A. So there's a certain style that we eat, just a straight up cup of noodles and like a Top Ramen, um, and that's just something, like, nostalgic that we grew up with. So I would say, even though...a cup of noodles, an instant cup of noodles doesn't compare to, like, a really well-made, like, Shin and Neoguri and Jin ramyun and, you know, Snack Ramen is dope too, Snack Ramen cups. Um, but when you add that Tapatio in there--
Peter: Oh, yeah.
Roy: A little bit of tajín and a big squeeze of lime up in that motherfucker, you slurp that thing. (laughing)
Peter: Yeah. I feel you. (laughing) I mean, it's like the vessel too, it's like that, like, little cup, you know?
Roy: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Peter: And like, when you say that, I mean, honestly, like, one of the first things that comes to mind is like the dried corn and peas in the Cup Noodle, which, like, it's like such a particular flavor. And it's so linked to Cup Ramen. And like, I love it, you know what I mean? But yeah, that cup is so...
Roy: And then after you finish, it becomes either an ashtray or where you can spit sunflower seeds into, you know?
Peter: Yeah. There you go.
Roy: It's everything.
Peter: The world in a cup, man.
Peter (voiceover): The world in a cup. Can you put it any better than that? I asked Roy about how his family came over to the U.S.
Roy: You know, my parents came here when I was two years old. We came straight to Koreatown. Uh, at that time, Koreatown was just developing. So it wasn't the behemoth that it is now. You know, right now, L.A. Koreatown is probably as large as, like, lower Manhattan, you know? And so it wasn't like that. It was literally, like one or two markets, two or three restaurants, you know, maybe a couple like, you know, pharmacies or service centers here, there. But literally, you could count the amount of, like, merchant shops that encompass Koreatown on one hand or two hands. We started our life. It was uh, you know, obviously I was just a little kid, but I was very aware from the time I was young. And I just remember, I remember the poetry and the beauty of...of the dichotomy of life at that time, because again, there weren't that many Asians, you know, in America at that time. And it wasn't...there wasn't, um, there weren't many things to find solace or safety or warmth in. And so what happens, where I'm leaning towards is, that you had to live kind of these double, triple, quadruple lives. And so a lot of uh, lot of the Korean American immigrants at that time had to find whatever job was out there. Um, just like any new immigrant that comes to the country, right? And you're just developing your community, your areas, your connections, your networks. But at the same time, you all have to kind of, like, fend for yourselves. But then, um, and then figure out this world where the language is different, people look at you a certain way and treat you a certain way. And then, and then being very, and then the Asian kind of like, and then that mix, that cocktail mixed with the whole Asian personality of kind of being quiet and being invisible, you know, just kind of getting through. Just, you know, doing the work, but not causing too much trouble, figuring it out. But then on the weekend, I remember, you know, so there's that life where everything was kind of like, let's just keep your head down, you know, don't cause any trouble. Just, let's get by. And then on the weekend I remember everyone coming together, whoever was around at that time. And then, and then over the years, I saw that grow and grow and grow, obviously. But we'd end up with the parks, and you know, everyone--it would be like a potluck. Everyone would bring their kimchi, their kalbis, their rices, their rice cakes, whatever it is. And then they'd play baseball, soccer, kids would run around, and that was the--growing up, you know, that was the time to be Korean. And then, and then it would be like, everyone give each other a pound, and you go back. You go back to your regular life and then just look for the weekend. That's how it was in the early days.
Peter (voiceover): I could relate to this. I grew up in the corn fields of Danville, Illinois. There weren't a lot of Korean families around, and my parents really adopted midwestern culture. So my diet growing up was equal parts stuff like casseroles and Hamburger Helper or Dinty Moore beef stew, which I love, on the one hand, and Korean food on the other. Like Chef Roy, a weekend ritual was the church potluck, which is when all the Korean families got together and chowed down. Here's my mom's take on it.
Young Ja: I think Korean church was sort of a gathering place for Korean people, whether they are Christian or not. They all came and they brought their dish and we share. And I do remember we had lots of meetings at our house. Yeah, and that way, uh, we shared Korean food and our emotions and, you know, our memory. So that was a real valuable gathering for Korean people, uh, to get together and share our common background. And people came from all over: Indiana, northern Illinois, southern Illinois. And they all really enjoyed getting together there.
Peter: Can you remember some of the dishes that people would bring? I feel like I remember always seeing a certain kind of menu at these potlucks.
Young Ja: Korean pancakes, which is the ground mung bean with pork and, uh, bean sprouts and, you know, onions put in there, and then we make it just like a pancake. But it's not like American pancake. This is, um, this is the, like, I don't know how to say food or whatever.
Peter: Yeah, you don't put squid in American pancakes, for example.
Young Ja: Using whatever you have on hand, uh, and we always had Korean dumpling, mandu, either stirfried or steamed, and japchae. It's bean thread noodles mixed with meat and vegetables.
Peter (voiceover): To this day, the smell that brings me back to the Korean church potlucks of my youth is the smell of dried shiitake mushrooms rehydrated and stir fried. You know, they just have that really particular smell that fresh shiitakes just don't have. I don't know why, but that aroma, it just always brings me back. Anyway, I talked to Roy about some of the food he ate growing up.
Roy: Our house was a perpetual living kitchen. So what I mean by that is that my whole life, ever since I remember, growing up, it's not--I never woke up to a kitchen where, like, you know, the countertops were completely empty and everything was put away, you know. And my life was a sourdough starter. That could be a good metaphor for my life, because it was always--like, something was always building. So there was always something on the stove. There was always things like, open on the counter. There was always things fermenting or marinating on the floor, and you know that that's just--I've never, never experienced or grew up in a situation where things were pristine.
Peter: What were some of your family meals like at home?
Roy: You know, again, it was--it was a constant evolving. There would always be like, three or four stews or soups on the stove, whether that would be, uh, galbitang or galbijjim, or fish soup, like saengseon jjigae or kimchi jjigae or gimjang jjigae. There would also be like broiled mackerel, different--there would be salted croaker and fish hanging from our clothes lines at all times.
Peter: (laughing) Nice.
Roy: There would be a kimchi, different porridges and rice. You know, we'd have maybe two or three different rices, and two or three different porridges, all kinds of banchan and kimchis and vegetables and namul. And there would be, um, instant ramen. So a breakfast would be, you know, most likely a stew, maybe some fried fish, a bowl of rice, some banchan, also mixed with, maybe like a, you know, like a quesadilla and like, a bowl of cereal, you know?
Peter: Yeah. (laughing)
Roy: So, you know, it was kind of like, it was always kind of mashed and mixed up together.
Peter: I mean, everything you just said there, I was, like, going on this sort of, like, sense memory tour, my brain, just smelling all those things. Just when you say dried squid, and that really particular smell of dried squid. Um, and then that got me thinking, it just brought me back to something--one of the things I just hated, actually, about, uh, Korean meals, which is barley tea.
Roy: Oh yeah.
Peter: Um, and it's like, for for those who aren't, like, super familiar with Korean cuisine, you know, at least in my experience, there's not a lot of water around when people are eating. Um, people drink this boricha, which is, yeah, this barley tea. And I love it today. But like, when I was a kid, it was like, annoying to me that the only thing I could ever drink, if I was thirsty, was this damn barley tea. Like, I couldn't just get like--
Roy: It was horrible. It was horrible for kids. It was like, it was like old Three Stooges, (laughing) or like Little Rascals shows of like, drinking castor oil, like, that's--that was the imagination of a kid, like, opening a refrigerator and not seeing anything, other than this brown water.
Peter: Yeah, I want Sunny D, you know? And like, instead, I've got, like, brown grain liquid, that's like bitter and not at all sweet. Um, of course, like, older me now, like I love this stuff. But...
Roy: Yeah. You could you could open a boricha shop in Brooklyn.
Peter: That would be a great irony if I did that, cause I...(laughing)
Roy: You would kill it, you would kill it, crush it.
Peter: You know what I'll do, is I'll start calling it grain broth, and...
Roy: Different, different shades of it, different levels of it...
Peter: (voiceover) If any of you take this idea for a grain broth store and run with it, don't forget to shout out me and Roy. One of my favorite questions to ask people is what their desert island comfort dish would be. So I asked Roy what his desert island Korean comfort dish would be.
Roy: It has to be kimchi jjigae, right? I mean, if that was the only Korean dish that you could eat, it has to be, it has to be kimchi jjigae.
Peter: I feel that, man. I've got my special pot of kimchi that I like, get extra funky for the purpose of making kimchi jjigae. And when my parents come and visit, that's what I make.
Roy: It's the most up-cycled dish that we have as a culture, because it's the kitchen sink dish. Because you save everything, all different types of kimchi from every restaurant you've ordered, and every one that you've bought and then, you know, all of them kind of come together at the end. They meet, they meet the end of their life together into the stew, every single kimchi that comes into your life at whatever point it is in your life.
Peter: (voiceover) Wow, what a beautiful, poetic way to encapsulate the essence of kimchi jjigae. I asked Margaret the same question.
Peter: If you were on a deserted island and you could only eat one Korean dish for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Margaret: Oh, gosh. Um, well, I think it would be dolsot bibimbap. I mean, because it's got so much in it, and you could do it on a desert because you just build a fire, you get a rock, and maybe just put stuff on it. (laughing) Um, yeah, you go like swimming, and then you grab whatever seafood you can get, or seaweed, and just throw it on there. And so if I could have, like, a big crock of, like doenjang, then I could--not doenjang, gochujang. Then I could figure it out. But yeah, I think that's what--that would be my favorite.
Peter: And just kill a deer for a little nightcap after that. (laughing)
Margaret: Little bit of blood, you know, get the horn. Just suck on the horn. My mom would get like, the deer horn, and like, suck on it. And we're like, "What is that, candy?" "No no, this deer horn. See this horn. Horn." (laughing)
Peter: (voiceover) Alright, alright. I mentioned at the beginning of the episode that I'd play a song of my own, and it turns out that Chef Roy asked me about my music.
Roy: So you said, you said you're an MC a couple times. What's your, what's your MC name?
Peter: Oh, man. So I used to go by Omega 60, and the reason for that is because there's this movie I like--so I'm kind of like a film nerd also. But there's a film called Welcome To Alphaville-
Roy: Oh yeah.
Peter: -by Goddard, and the film--in that, in that movie there's a supercomputer named Alpha 60. Alpha 60 has taken over the world and as part of its agenda, is erasing art, and sort of, feeling from the human experience. And so I...this is a long story behind this, but I lived in--so I did the Peace Corps, and I lived in central Africa for two and a half years, where I was like, in a tiny rural village. No water, no electricity, so on. And I came back to the US after that, and coming back to the US after that experience was such a crazy reentry. It was--there's just so much friction with just being back, and like, seeing like the medicine ads, the ads everywhere, like the consumerism, the--just the sheer number of toothpastes you could choose from. And I felt like the country had been taken over by Alpha 60, and that was my experience. And so then I thought, okay, what's the counter to Alpha 60? It's Omega 60.
Roy: Ah.
Peter: So the idea behind Omega 60 was to be like the countering force to all that seeks to destroy art in the world.
Roy: That's dope, man.
Peter: And then I recorded like three tracks. (laughing)
Roy: That's a great conceptual, you know, philosophical perspective and art form.
Peter: (voiceover) So to close things out for this episode, I'm gonna play a song called "Welcome To Alphaville" by Omega 60. Me. And it's a song about how messed up the U.S. can feel after you've spent a few years away from it. Straight up, I am nervous about doing this, because there are maybe 10 or 20 people in the world who have never heard this song. It's a little dark, but uh yeah, check it out.
(musical interlude)
Peter: Thank you to my guests, Margaret Cho, chef Roy Choi, and my mom. Shout out to CLARA and DANakaDAN for providing the music. Shout out to Coral Lee and the Food52 team. I'm Peter J. Kim, and I'll catch you all on the next episode of Counterjam.