Korean dishes like bulgogi and bibimbap are slowly gaining popularity overseas as a health food. Early this month at the “Korean Barbecue Contest” held in Los Angeles, nearly 10,000 people crowded the stands for a sample. Last week, U.S. media also covered PGA champion golfer Yang Yong-eun’s dinner party of a multi-course Korean meal, including rice, galbi (beef ribs), and kimchi, for his fellow golfers.
Recently, the Korean food globalization team at the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MIFAFF) announced that Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania will be the first university in the US to open a full lecture series dedicated to Korean cuisine. The prestigious east coast University enjoys vibrant exchanges with some of the top universities in Korea, including the Seoul National University, KAIST, Ewha Woman’s University, and Hanyang University.
According to the school, beginning this September, these lectures will “explore the fundamentals and philosophy of traditional South Korean cuisine,” with a “strong emphasis on cultural influences, the Korean aesthetic, knife work and terminology.” This course will be open to all students interested in Korean culture.
Lee Jee-hyun, an assistant professor at Drexel University played a major role in bringing the lectures to campus. Lee is currently pursuing ways to make Korean cuisine a part of the curriculum for the culinary arts program, and further planning to open a Korean cuisine course at Drexel’s Lifelong Education Center.
The lectures will last for 10 weeks, with a predicted class size of about 10 to 15 students. The students will learn to make four to five different Korean course meals, and around the eighth week, the school plans to invite managers of school restaurants and local businesspeople from Philadelphia and New Jersey’s the food industry to sample and evaluate the student’s food.
“Many of the students in Drexel’s culinary program go on to jobs in the restaurant business or food companies,” said Jang Myung-chul, an official from the Korean food globalization team. “This will not only help to promote Korean food to the locals, but also provide us a chance to collect feedback on our traditional food for future improvements.”
Korean cuisine has also made in-roads at Hattori Nutrition College, Japan’s top culinary school in May this year. The Tokyo-based culinary institute was established in 1939 and produces over 1,000 professional cooks every year.
A total of 1,300 students from four culinary departments will attend a 25-week long lecture series, which is divided into sections on theory, folklore, demonstrations, and cooking sessions. They made gujeolpan (nine-filling crepes), haemul kimchi-jjigae (kimchi stew with seafood), oiseon (stuffed cucumber) and ogok-bap (five-grain rice).
Last March, in order to provide better lectures on Korean food, MIFAFF and Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corporation invited a dozen Korean cuisine instructors living in Japan back for to Korea for extra training before the school starts again.
The Ministry is looking to expand Korean cooking programs to other cooking schools abroad, such as the Culinary Institute of America in the United States, Le Cordon Blue in France, and the Tsujicho Culinary Institute in Osaka.
The government is considering establishing official licenses for Hansik chefs, enacting a new law to promote restaurant business, and create a 50 billion won food industry investment fund by 2013.
Star chefs for Korean food
Another nine universities and institutions, including Daelim and Hallym Colleges, were designated as professional training schools for producing experts on local cuisines. The students will go train for five months, from July to early December, with the government shouldering 70 percent of the expense.
Chef Lee Hyo-sam, who completed the course last year, stands as a successful example of this new Hansik training. His yukgaejang (spicy beef soup) with noodles is currently a big hit in his restaurant, attracting not only locals but quite a number of expats as well.
The government selected Woosung University, Jeonju University and Busan Tourism High school as schools cooking Korean cuisine. The three schools recognized for management and training of the students were chosen to receive extra government funds for the next few years. The two colleges will receive a combined 2.4 billion won for the next four years and the high school will receive 600 million won for next three years.
Woosung University is taking advantage of the opportunity by operating a culinary MBA course, the first of its kind in the world. The course is open to only top 10 percent of students, resulting in fierce competition among those who wish to build their culinary, business, and foreign language skills.
source:korea.net
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