Hot! Hot! Hot! Korean Food in the Age of Kpop

April 8, 2021 - Once considered a dubious cuisine relegated to the “ethnic food“ category, Korean food is now hotter than ever in the United States and beyond. Ingredients like gochugaru and gochujang show up on menus of American fast food chains and local grocery aisles, while Korean cooking shows and meokbang videos have become a genre of their own on streaming platforms and social media, such as Netflix and YouTube. Today, KFC also stands for Korean Fried Chicken and the noodle dish jjapaguri from the Oscar-winning movie Parasite has its own Wikipedia entry. Professor Robert Ji-Song Ku explores the rising popularity, appreciation, and appropriation of Korean food around the world and particularly in the United States, and its relationship to the global proliferation of Korean popular culture, a phenomenon commonly known as hallyu, the Korean Wave. For more information please visit the link below: