karen's bibimbop
Appreciation and appropriation: it’s a line that’s being observed more closely in recent years (and especially in the last one). This is in part due to the rise in diversity in the food world and in part due to a desire and demand for appropriate representation of one’s culture. There is a confidence now in calling attention to this, rather than just letting it slide. It’s something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about as well. When I first left home to go to college, I didn’t think much about cooking Indian food - the food I grew up with. Sometimes I would crave it, but New York City has no shortage of Indian restaurants. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve started to take the time to learn to cook the food of my childhood. I have always felt strongly about sourcing recipes for Indian food from Indian bloggers and cookbooks authored by Indian people, but I am guilty of not applying such a discerning eye to other cuisines when learning how to cook them. With the access to knowledge we have now, however, it’s hard to keep pleading ignorance - especially when I have done the work to research my own food. If you want to learn about a food tradition from a particular culture, there will be something on the Internet written by someone who has emotional ties to it. You may just need to dig a little deeper, put in a little extra effort. And Google doesn’t make that easy with its search algorithms; you need advertising savvy to get your content at the top of a Google search, not authenticity.
Since college, my group of friends has continued to diversify. I realized, upon reflection, that a lot of my close friends in adulthood are either first-generation Americans (the children of immigrants, like myself), or immigrants themselves. Where I grew up, I didn’t meet many other kids like that, other than the Indian families we already knew. There is a shared experience between us, even if it is not culturally identical.
One of my favorite parts of having friends from different places is eating with them, and now, learning from them how to cook their food. Comfort foods vary so much culture to culture (and often even household to household), and much in the way that I am more discerning about finding Indian recipes online, I’ve found my friends are the same way about food from their own backgrounds. They can provide links to blogs or social media presences that align with what authenticity means to them.
COVID has encouraged me to step outside of my cooking comfort zone. In the last year, I’ve tried about 100 new recipes, and they have spanned several different cuisines. I love eating out, and I miss it, but sometimes take out just isn’t the same. Learning to make some of my favorite foods at home, and learning to use new ingredients (or re-purpose familiar ones), has been a joy. One of my friends recently joked that we all had learned to cook so many new things during the pandemic that we could just eat at each other’s homes instead of going out to dinner post-COVID.
My COVID bubble is tiny; Karen, who lives a decent walk from me, and sometimes her boyfriend. Karen is someone I was becoming friends with pre-COVID, but hadn’t gotten to know super well. Fast forward six months into the pandemic, and she and I were two of the only people in our group of friends who hadn’t left the city. We were both going to be here through the winter. We took a few local weekend trips together, eager for a change of scenery and a place to walk outside without a mask for a few minutes. It was nice to have someone to hug from time to time! She invited me over for Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) in October. It was a treat, going somewhere other than my own home for dinner, and to be attending any sort of a celebration, no matter how small.
Chuseok at Karen’s
When I arrived, the table was set, white plates on blue placemats. There was a tableful of food - some familiar, some less so. I spotted japchae, which I had had before, and a bowl of rice, but then there were other things, all of which Karen identified - galbi jim, jeon, namul. I helped myself to a little of everything. It was such a gift to be a part of a meal like this during a time without many communal dinners. After we finished eating, we lingered around the table, chatting and drinking, occasionally munching on some of the Korean snacks Karen had brought out post-dinner. I remember walking home that night on a high - a little tipsy, very full, and feeling a dose of normalcy for the first time in a while. The 40 block walk back went by much quicker than the walk there.
I had an aversion to Korean food that stemmed from college, and some very messy roommates. There was often food sitting on the kitchen stove for days, much of it Korean. It got to the point where I moved out without some of the pots and pans I had moved in with - they were still sitting out, filled with food. For a while, that’s all I (very unfairly) associated with Korean food. I hate when people tell me they don’t like Indian food - as though it is a monolith - and I’m sure I sounded much the same. Luckily, I have friends who like to eat all kinds of food, and I was exposed to the variety and breadth of Korean food in my post college years. It still wasn’t something I actively chose when I was eating out, but I did start to try more of it.
During the pandemic, as I got to know Karen better, I wanted to learn how to cook what she cooked. Her dinners always sounded delicious, and I figured that at worst, I might not like it. In December, when she came over to spend the weekend, I told her I wanted to learn to make some Korean food. A trip to HMart was added to our weekend agenda. She decided we would make bibimbop (at my request) and soft tofu soup. It turned out that both of these dishes were quick, and I could easily make them vegetarian, too. Having grown up vegetarian, I often default to cooking that way at home, even though I love eating nearly everything when I go out for dinner.
My favorite part about learning to cook from a friend is the little things you learn. When we went to HMart, I watched what Karen bought; she had preferences for certain brands and certain vegetables, and she showed me what was in the prepared section - shortcuts I could take if I didn’t want to make everything myself. In the snack aisle, she pointed out some of the items we had eaten after the Chuseok dinner at her place. It was so nice to go with her; I would have been lost on my own, unsure of what to buy and overwhelmed by all the options. I was also pleasantly surprised to find some vegetables and herbs that I usually had to go down to the Indian store to get, a longer walk from me than HMart.
When I pulled out jasmine rice from my pantry for the bibimbop, she asked if I had sushi rice, as that was closer to what she used (due to similar growing environments in Japan and Korea). I’ve been cooking sushi rice quite a bit over the last year, and have grown partial to its taste and texture, which is quite different from jasmine rice. I’m not sure I could have differentiated between the two before this year. I started chopping the vegetables while Karen prepped the meat and the seafood. Watching her cook reminded me of how my mom cooks; by taste and sight and smell, rather than measurements. She showed me what she was doing at each step; she was adept at multi-tasking, as we (really, she) made the soup and the vegetables for the bibimbop simultaneously. She told me that bibimbop is more of a leftovers dish in Korean households, which made a lot of sense to me once she said it; but since you can order it at so many Korean restaurants here, I had never realized that.
I’m still learning all the different ways tofu can be cooked; in my younger years, I felt like I primarily experienced it as a substitute for meat, and found it a poor one. But in the soup, it added its own texture and took on the flavor of the broth we were making, reminding me that its original purpose was not necessarily to replace meat products.
Dinner was delicious; I was so happy to find that I loved all the flavors and textures that Karen had put together. The heat of the gochujang sauce on the bibimbop was perfect, and the sushi rice nearly had a crunch to it, a texture that wouldn’t have come out of the jasmine rice. The soft tofu soup was a perfect accompaniment for the beginning of winter. Karen told me she’s grown into cooking more Korean food as she’s gotten older; I can relate, as I feel similarly about Indian food. When we were kids, my sister and I would negotiate with my mother for the number of “non-Indian” dinners per week; that number kept going up as we got older. But now, there are days where I crave Indian food, and I have made a point to keep learning new recipes for familiar foods, especially during the pandemic. It’s something I don’t want to lose, and it’s been satisfying to learn to recreate some of the flavors of my childhood - especially the dishes I can’t find at a restaurant.
Korean food is officially part of my pandemic repertoire. I’ve made bibimbop once a month or so since Karen showed me how. I have yet to recreate the tofu soup, but it’s on my to-do list as well. We’ve made a few more trips to HMart, and she will very patiently answer my random questions when I’m trying other recipes with these new ingredients. I’m so grateful to have a friend who is so generous in sharing her culture. And I truly believe it is easier to love new foods when you see how much someone else loves them, too. Food carries emotional weight, and none more than the food of our childhoods, I think.
Karen’s Bibimbop
makes 1 serving with leftover spinach
Ingredients
1/3 cup uncooked sushi rice
1/2 zucchini, sliced into coins
2-3 shittake mushrooms, sliced
1/2 carrot, cut into matchsticks
1 bunch fresh spinach
1 clove garlic, minced
Sesame oil
Vegetable oil
Gochujang
Soy sauce
Salt
Protein of choice (optional) - I prefer a fried egg
Recipe
Put a pot of water on to boil. Measure out 1/3 cup of rice, rinse, and follow package instructions for cooking. While the rice is cooking and the water is boiling, slice zucchini into coins, slice the mushrooms, and cut the carrots into matchsticks. Mince one clove garlic. Rinse spinach. Pour a little vegetable oil into a non-stick and heat on medium. Sauté the carrots, zucchini, and mushrooms with a little salt (one vegetable at a time if you’re aiming for the restaurant presentation) and set aside. If I’m adding an egg, I’ll use the same pan to fry it now. Once the water is boiling, add the spinach and let it cook for two to three minutes. Drain it into a colander and rinse under cold water. Once it’s cool to touch, squeeze out as much water as possible. Put it in a bowl and add a splash of sesame oil, the minced garlic, and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine.
The gochujang sauce is to taste. Start with half a tablespoon of gochujang, add some soy sauce and sesame oil, and stir together until combined. Taste and add more sesame oil or soy sauce as necessary (or more gochujang for more heat).
By now, the rice should be ready.* Scoop it out into a bowl, arrange the vegetables (and protein, if you made one) on top, and add a big dollop of sauce. Mix it all together and enjoy!
*If you want the rice a little crispy, add a light coating of vegetable oil to a nonstick pan on medium heat. Once it’s warm, add the rice and press it against the pan. Let it sit for a few minutes. This will help the bottom layer of rice crisp up just a bit for a little crunch.
