Discussion Post #5

[Isaac Choe]

A major aspect of any culture is, of course, its food. Growing up, eating Korean food was something I never really thought twice about since it was just something my mom made and my family ate on a daily basis. However, learning about the history of the etymology of the foods is something I hope to uncover and be able to carry with me as I explore my heritage through gastronomy. Learning some root words behind food can help me learn more about where these foods come from, how they are prepared, and so on. For instance, the word for onion in Korean is “양파", but the word for a green onion by contrast is simply just “파”. This is because the word for onion translates to, “Western Onion”, so the onions I refer to as “just” onions are actually western onions to Koreans, and by contrast, my word for green onion is “just” an onion to them. This reveals perhaps a history of the food, for instance, the western onion indicates that perhaps this is not a vegetable native to Korea, but the western world. So seeing how it is implemented in traditional Korean dishes is interesting since it was introduced at a later point. This is just one long example of the many ways I can use Korean gastronomical etymology as a vehicle to learn Korean history and cultural exchange.

[Anna Liu]

Hi Issac,

I like how you mentioned food as a big part of your upbringing. My family is Chinese, but we don't speak Mandarin. Rather, we speak Cantonese which is a dialect that is spoken in Southern provinces/areas in China such as Guangdong province and Hong Kong. One food I distinctly remember eating lots of when growing up (and now) is steamed fish. We had some variations of steamed fish around three to five days a week!