Introduction

My first job in my grandmother’s kitchen was to plate the banchan for the family’s evening dinner. Some nights, it would only be two or three little dishes to go with fluffy steamed rice and doenjang jjigae, a soothing bowl of silky potatoes, soft tofu, and sweet squash stewed with the nutty Korean soybean paste. If we were having guests over or celebrating a birthday, I helped bring out the large black lacquered dinner table and filled it with homemade goodies: marinated steamed eggplant from the garden; soy-pickled perilla leaves I helped to harvest the week prior; pan-fried eggs rolled with diced vegetables; sun-dried radishes from last year’s harvest spiked with vinegar and fiery pepper flakes; and dried squid doused with honey and the chile paste called gochujang.