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What makes pocha food different from that offered in a Korean restaurant?

Markets are very good places for anyone to really feel the life of that particular country or culture. On a very basic environmental level, there’s a sound and smell, and it’s just sensory heaven. As you walk through the markets, you see how people move and talk and engage. There is a reasonable degree of trust as well, and you know you’re seeing the whole theater of it as it unfolds. What’s different is the way that the food is cooked: The pocha setup is very simple; there’s no set of six burners, just one hob. The dishes are very seasonal, based on what’s available and cheap, but done very well. But it happens in front of you, and there’s an immediate connection that you have with the vendor. For the cooks, while they have years of experience, their food doesn’t have ego. But there is a sense of pride—this is their life, and they want to feed you well, and for you to like it. And I think that’s quite special.

How did pocha go from a working-class experience to one beloved throughout Korea? How are they being sustained today?

In Korea, almost everyone can afford good food, and even the richest people will queue up for a restaurant’s special dish for two hours or more. Korea only came out of food poverty after the Korean War, so a lot of older generations understand what it means to be hungry, and there is a lot of love for preserving Korean food and its culture. As Korea has developed into a global powerhouse, Korean food companies are taking up space in the world market. Now, some of the neighborhoods that house pocha are being redeveloped; there are parts of Seoul I don’t even recognize anymore. Yet what I’m seeing now is that younger generations who are moving into these soon-to-be-demolished towns want to preserve these places. So I’m confident that pocha will continue to exist, though in what shape or form is another story. But I think the educated, younger generations bring savvy and eloquence to the fight to protect their culture.

How did you get into food writing?

Around 2011, food blogs were everywhere, and I remember reading food blogs such as Cannelle et Vanille and Orangette, and thinking, “Oh, I really want to do that.” So I wrote a really bad food blog, and then I somehow secured a job writing a column for a Korean food magazine, and it felt like a practice to find out what I want to write about. When my daughter was born in 2015, I realized that I’d lived in London long enough that I had distanced myself from Korean culture. So I started to explore where my Koreanness comes from, and the most tangible thing was food and the dishes that I grew up with. And in 2019, the Observer Food Monthly ran a competition for readers’ recipes, and I entered with a story about my mother’s kimchi jjigae, and to my surprise, I won. That moment crystallized what I wanted to do, and that became my first book, Rice Table, all about my mother’s and maternal grandmother’s tables and how what we feed ourselves builds the bigger picture of who we are.

Some people may be surprised to see ingredients such as cheese and hot dogs (or both, in the case of your recipe for corn dogs) in this book. How did these ingredients enter the pantheon of Korean cooking?

Going back to the era of the Three Kingdoms of Korea [18 BCE–660 CE], we were influenced by all these neighboring countries, and some of the similarities between Chinese and Korean cuisines stems from that period of trade. Then we had the Japanese occupation [1910–1945], and that brought the influence of Japan along with migrant workers from Japan and China. There are a lot of crossovers that we can’t, even as Koreans, quite pinpoint. Did a dish start with us, or did it come from Japan and was then reimagined in Korea as it is now? Then the Korean War brought American and European soldiers, and many Koreans relied on the generosity of American troops passing on rations that they didn’t want; one community’s waste became another’s treasure, and it sustained the nation in so many ways. Ingredients such as Spam or canned beans or American cheese were adapted to suit Korean palates. When you look at the very recent history of Korean food, you have to remember that free travel really only started in the early 1980s, and we welcomed an influx of tourists during the [1988 Seoul] Olympics, so it was a fundamental time of growth in all areas, but particularly in food. Now, Koreans aren’t just going to the U.S.; they’re going to Europe to study and to learn about food, and they bring a lot back with them. So what once seemed like a quite limited option—Korean people wanting to preserve Korean food—now looks different. 

How would you explain the many gradations of flavor and texture in Korean cuisine?

We have this idea of bapsang, a table that includes a number of dishes—banchan, a bowl of rice, and either soup or stew—something with a warm broth. The rest of the meal supports the rice; there is a saying that every Korean parent knows: “rice is life.” That idea comes from the generations who never had enough food. But we want to enjoy a variety of things, and we’re also very conscious of food as a form of medicine. There are also a lot of different colors, textures, and temperatures to satisfy and balance. I think the balance is the most important thing—the harmonious table. Korean people are really good with being conscious and conscientious toward nature because we had to learn to preserve food, and preserving brings a different texture. So when anyone asks me to pinpoint “What is Korean food?” I say, “harmony.” 

Pocha food is almost always enjoyed with a drink of soju, either by itself or in a cocktail such as a Soju Sour. Why is that so vital?

So in the 1960s to ’70s, there was a massive shift in Korea toward wanting to rebuild the country. Seoul became this place where everything was possible; people came with their dreams, and pocha offered a place of rest to these workers coming from all walks of life after a hard day’s work—and there was always soju. So both were booming at the same time, and they have this really lovely symbiotic relationship. It’s a bit like the pub culture in the UK—after work you have a drink with your colleagues or friends and you offload the weights of life. We work hard, so we play hard; we drink soju and drown our sorrows so we can face the world again tomorrow with rejuvenated energy and vitality. And then that comes with the culture of hangover cure; you need to sober up and start again, and there’s no time to waste. 

The book’s food and travel photographs are so vibrant. How did you determine the look and feel of the book?

I was very lucky—my husband is a food photographer, so he’s always worked in the industry. One hot summer night, we were in Busan at a pocha, and we were kind of tipsy, and we had this epiphany of the vibe we wanted in the book and doodled the cover together. It had to have neon lights and darkness and coziness and simplicity, but alongside the calm and serenity and mundanity of what Seoul can feel like if you’re not a tourist. If you live on these untrodden paths, you can capture a sense of workers breaking for lunch, people gathering in a park on a hot summer’s day, with tents and cans of beer, to watch the world go by. So we lived this idea of pocha at home in London, and when we went back to Korea to take photos, especially the location photos, I’d already made a list of 250 random things that I wanted to capture, and for about two weeks we walked everywhere to cover all the basics. I am beyond pleased with the photography in the book because it is exactly what I wanted—for people to feel like they’re walking with me.

Did you have any favorite recipes or elements in the book to develop?

Oh God, there are so many! I’m not precious about family recipes because I didn’t have family recipes as such. But the Northern-style dumpling, I remember how we made it at home, and my father was quite strong about keeping up with the tradition because he grew up eating those dishes. It’s also the first dish that my daughter asked me to cook with her, and she took such pride in making and shaping the dumplings. This is the power of food, that one recipe allowing her to engage with the culture and to embrace my family, who she doesn’t see very often. I took a video of when we made that dish for the first time together, and I sent it to my father. He cried and felt that sense of pride.

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