Now you might be thinking, "Why on earth would I need a guide to eating? Don't you just put the food in your mouth and call it a day?" However, a typical Korean meal, whether it be at a restaurant or at someone's home, has numerous components, and how you eat the food (and what order to eat them in) can play a critical role in determining whether or not it is one of the best meals of your life or one of the worst, saltiest, meals of your life.
Help! Why are there so many dishes on the table?!
Many Korean-food newbies will sit down at a restaurant and start freaking out when the waitress brings out a multitude of small dishes and spreads it across the table. They may think to themselves, "What are all these dishes? I didn't order all of these!" And to a first timer, this can be a little confusing. A typical meal will consist of the main dish (whether that be BBQ, fish, casserole, etc.) and
banchan, which are side dishes that can be eaten before and along with the main dish. The side dishes usually consist of various types of kimchi (regular kimchi, kimchied daikons, kimchied scallions, kimchied pickles, etc.), seasoned roots, dried anchovies, and more.
In addition, rice is a given. Rice, though it might not seem like much, is essential to balancing out the salty, spiciness of everything else on the table. With every piece of meat or every spoon of the savory stew, a spoon of rice is consumed to reduce the powerful flavors of whatever it is that you are eating.
Now, if you ordered Korean BBQ, you might be wondering what the deal is with the huge lettuce leaves and perilla leaves. These should be used to make
ssam, lettuce wraps, with the meat. What you put in your
ssam is really up to you, but people usually put in a piece of meat, a little bit of rice, raw garlic or onion, and some
ssamjang, which is a mixture of hot chili paste and doenjang paste.
Now that you have some general knowledge on how to eat Korean food, go out and enjoy knowing that you won't look like a complete fool!
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