Korea Around the Table: Food and Global Korean Identities

Korea Around the Table: Food and Global Korean Identities brings together leading scholars to examine how Korean cuisine encodes identity, memory, and belonging across local and global contexts. From the early adoption of chili peppers on the Korean peninsula to the proliferation of sundubu jjigae restaurants in suburban New Jersey, this groundbreaking volume shows how food is not merely sustenance but a powerful site where history, culture, and community intersect.

As Korean food enters the global marketplace, the idea of what is and is not authentic Korean food becomes more contentious. Korea, long marked by division and diaspora, emerges here as more heterogeneous than nationalist narratives suggest, with its food culture continually reshaped by intercultural exchanges. The growing worldwide popularity of Korean cuisine highlights the tension between preserving traditions and reducing “Koreanness” to a fixed menu of recognizable dishes.

Drawing on perspectives from sociology, history, literature, and anthropology, the contributors explore how everyday eating practices express and contest social identities, raising questions of gender, class, ethnicity, race, and the meanings of being Korean in the twenty-first century. As the first edited volume devoted entirely to food in Korea and the Korean diaspora, Korea Around the Table offers a vital resource for Korean studies, food studies, and global cultural history, while inviting readers to consider how something as ordinary as a meal can illuminate the most complex dimensions of identity.

Rory Walsh is an associate at the Nam Center for Korean Studies at the University of Michigan.

Source: publisher’s website