By Nina Huang
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
When Korean American chef Caroline Choe decided to write a cookbook about Korean side dishes, banchan, she stayed true to her authenticity with the book title.
Choe recently held an event at Seattle’s only cookbook store, Book Larder, in Fremont, to promote her debut book, “Banchan: 60 Korean American Recipes for Delicious, Shareable Sides.”
In-person author talk with Caroline Choe, Banchan, hosted by Rachel Yang and Book Larder on Oct. 22, 2024 (Photo by Nina Huang)
Joined by Rachel Yang, local chef and owner of Joule and Revel, the two chefs discussed “Banchan,” the evolving Korean American dinner table, and answered audience questions.
Based in New York City, Choe is a chef, artist, teacher, and writer. She created The Exploratorians illustration series, and founded Create & Plate, a business devoted to helping create community through arts and food education.
She thinks that Korean American food is still heavily guarded and she hopes that people will let go of the reins a bit.
From start to finish, it took Choe about two years to finish the book.
There was a moment where she wondered if they would incorporate “American” in the book title. She had to sit on it for a day to think it through. The inquiry came through because the book would be sold in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and South Korea.
“I can’t give you a Korean cookbook, but I can give you a Korean American cookbook. I can’t pretend to be anybody else that I’m not,” Choe said.
“In the end, I had to fight for what was right. Their suggestion was 60 modern Korean recipes, but that was very incorrect. This is me, this is my food, and I’m Korean American,” she added.
The rising popularity of Korean cuisine
Yang shared that when she and her husband first opened Joule, people only knew a few Korean dishes, like kimchi, kalbi, or bi bim bap. To be able to read a cookbook about banchan is amazing because more people know about it now.
“The banchan in my house was the stuff my parents made or bought from the store. We improvised with a lot of produce at the store on sale, not just napa cabbage, but broccoli was seasoned as a salad, with a little bit of sesame oil, salt, and pepper,” Choe said.
Yang is excited about “Banchan” because it will be amazing for more people to know about the side dishes.
Choe said that to her, banchan are small dishes to accompany rice when you’re having a meal.
“Whatever Korean food I had was home food, it wasn’t from restaurants because it was a luxury to go to a restaurant, and there weren’t as many Korean restaurants near our house,” Choe said.
She added that there was one in town that everyone went to and only one Korean grocery store near them which was the only place her parents bought kimchi. Her and her siblings were often dragged to the big H-Marts in New Jersey or Queens because they weren’t as readily available back then.
Some of Caroline’s favorites would be simply gim (roasted seaweed in Korean) with rice, the seasoned spinach, and soy bean salad.
One of the recipes in her book is for kimchi avocado nigiri inspired by Japanese American cuisine, which is one of her dad’s favorites.
Other recipes in the book include banchan classics such as geotjeori (fresh kimchi) and haemul pajeon (seafood pancake), as well as banchan from Choe’s kitchen like “hot honey” crispy tofu and pa muchim pizza.
Yang said that if there’s cheese found in a Korean’s kitchen, that’s when you know it’s Korean American.
She also said that in Korea, both Japanese and Chinese cuisine are popular, and that there’s distinct Korean Japanese and Korean Chinese food.
Cheese works well in Korea because they put cheese on a lot of dishes like kimchi pancake and people love it. One would also find it in a lot of the popular street foods in Korea—it’s a very common way people eat.
Caroline Choe (right) with Seattle Chef Rachel Yang at Book Larder on Oct. 22, 2024 (Photo by Nina Huang)
Local connections
Choe’s connection to Seattle is through relatives including her grandaunt, former city councilwoman Martha Choe, and granduncle Ed Choe.
Ed, who was in the audience, shared that his favorite banchan dish is sigeumchi-namul, a Korean side dish made of blanched spinach seasoned with soy sauce, garlic, and toasted sesame oil.
“It’s my favorite way of getting spinach, by far,” he said.
Ed is looking forward to trying out the kimchi mac and cheese recipe from the book.
“Caroline’s message is pretty awesome. One of the cool things that she really embraces is being very assertive about being a first generation Korean American. Her identity is forged by her Korean parents and growing up in America. I can also identify with that identity and it’s a strong statement,” Ed added.
Audience appreciation
Bree Chambers, who learned about the event just the night before, was excited to hear from Caroline because she’s a huge fan of Korean food. Her love for Korean cuisine grew during COVID when she watched a lot of cooking videos from Korean chef Maangchi on YouTube.
Chambers added that japchae is always a crowd favorite, as well as kimchi jigae.
“I love the flavors and getting more into the fermentation side of things. I had never attempted that before but I’m learning about the different processes. It’s really about learning for me, and I’m very excited to be at this event and to read the book cover to cover,” she said.
A member of the audience asked Choe if she had any insights that she took away from the process of publishing the cookbook.
Choe said she had to learn a new job entirely. Though she had written for the media for years, and been a chef, writer, teacher—writing a cookbook was a whole other executive producer role. She was told she’d be on her own for promotion and she had never put together a book tour or photo shoot before.
“Challenges were presented, but I’m glad I did this now as opposed to 10 years ago when I was more green. I wouldn’t have negotiated the way I did, speak up for myself… I’m surrounded by support and I can actually feel it,” she said.
After a long career of classroom teaching, Choe truly believes that practicing the act of creating—whether through art, music, dance, writing, food, and much more—is what will connect people across all differences and timelines.
Taking the fear out of cooking
With her cookbook, Choe hopes to show people how simple it can be and take the fear out of the cooking.
“My hope is that this can be part of the new American dinner table. The landscape is changing,” Choe said.
A lot of people have watched Korean dramas and sometimes there’s a scene where the Korean mom brings a bag of banchan for their kids.
“Banchan is a love language,” Choe said.
No matter how busy a family member is, they would always still find time to make banchan—including Martha, who couldn’t make it to Book Larder, but still found time to make banchan for Choe to share with the audience.
“I didn’t want to be pigeonholed into being a Korean American chef. I want to do a lot of the recipes that I do with my students. My concept for my business was teaching them how to cook, but stuff they’d make for their family,” she said.
Choe likes to make comfort food that isn’t necessarily always Korean American.
“I’m authentic to my family. I’m not the defining voice of a generation of Korean food eaters. That’s too much pressure, but we’re doing our part in making the food we love and sharing it—that’s us doing our part,” she said.
For more information, visit instagram.com/carochoe.
Nina can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.