The American cookbook publishing industry pays little attention to Korean food, a gap especially apparent in Los Angeles, where, despite the presence of a vibrant Koreatown, the cuisine remains as mystifying to non-Asians as it is intriguing.
Barbecue is easy--all Asian markets sell bottled Korean barbecue marinade. But how does one prepare kimchi stew, cold buckwheat noodles with Asian pear, \o7 kalbi tang \f7 (short rib soup), ginseng chicken and so forth?
A few books have appeared, but many had limited distribution and are hard to find or out of print. In 1959, Charles E. Tuttle Co., a specialist in Asian-themed books, published "The Art of Korean Cooking" by Harriett Morris. This primer on Korean food avoids ingredients that were not then available in American markets and makes such substitutions as candied ginger for fresh ginger root. However, Morris, an American who taught home economics in Seoul, was sufficiently versed in Korean cooking to make the necessary adaptations while retaining the spirit of the food.
In comparison, "The Art of Korean Cookery" (Shibata Publishing, 1963) by Cho Choong-Ok would have seemed exotic when it first appeared. The author, a Korean woman living in Japan, where she opened the Tokyo Korean Cooking Academy, wanted to introduce the food to Westerners. Therefore, she made some adaptations, but did include such ingredients as Korean red pepper paste, hot bean paste, gingko nuts and bracken sprouts. And she didn't hesitate to provide recipes for \o7 yuk-hwe \f7 (marinated raw beef), stuffed cuttlefish and a bean paste casserole, which must have seemed alien to Americans in the '60s. This book was published in Tokyo and distributed in the United States by Japan Publications Trading Co.
Seven years later, Follett Publishing Company in Chicago put out "The Korean Cookbook" by Judy Hyun, an American woman married to a Korean, Peter Hyun. Just before the book appeared, Judy Hyun died. Her husband left the United States to resettle in Seoul and wrote food columns for a newspaper there. The cookbook was later published in Korea by Hollym International Corp.
Judy Hyun introduced her readers to Korean culture as well as the food. The ingredients that she explained in a glossary now seem common, but in those days many Americans had yet to learn about bean curd, cellophane noodles and wasabi. Hyun's recipes are simple and call for a limited number of special ingredients. However, like Morris, she knew enough about Korean food to present the essence of it to a foreign audience.
