Korean Table

Korean sweet potato types come down to three Korean words, 밤고구마 (bam-goguma, "chestnut sweet potato"), 호박고구마 (hobak-goguma, "pumpkin sweet potato") and 꿀고구마 (kkul-goguma, "honey sweet potato"). They describe texture and sweetness, and the variety name behind each word has been changing. In a 2019 piece, Real Foods , a Korean food news site, listed those three as the commonly known types and put a variety in brackets next to each: 율미 (Yulmi) for chestnut, 안노베니 (Annobeni) for pumpkin and 베니하루카 (Beniharuka) for honey. Beniharuka is a Japanese seed. According to experts quoted by Nongmin Shinmun in June 2025, that Japanese variety "had been dominating" (좌지우지해왔다) the Korean sweet potato market. Chestnut, pumpkin, honey: what the words mean in the pot The Korean agricultural terms are 분질 (bunjil, floury) and 점질 (jeomjil, moist and sticky). A 2019 field guide from the Rural Development Administration (RDA) pairs them directly: "점질(호박)고구마...

Should you trim bean sprout tails before making kongnamul-guk (콩나물국, soybean sprout soup)? A common Korean answer is "keep the roots, that's where the hangover compound is," and a Korean news site ran that line again on September 19, 2026. I went back to the Korean lab data behind it, and the numbers split in a way the headline hides. First, the sprout in question. Kongnamul (콩나물) grows from soybeans and has a large yellow head. Sukju (숙주) is the mung bean sprout, with a small green-hulled bean. At a Korean grocer such as H Mart, the Hangul on the bag is the quickest way to tell them apart. What the "keep the roots" articles claim The September 19 piece in News-wa says "아스파라긴산은 뿌리 부분에 가장 풍부하다," which means the compound is richest in the root. It adds that 100 g of kongnamul holds 1,101.56 mg of it, "대부분이 뿌리에 몰려있다" (mostly concentrated in the root), and credits the number to the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences. The article do...

Does perilla oil need to be refrigerated? Korea's Rural Development Administration (농촌진흥청, RDA) says yes, and in 2016 it published the storage test behind that advice. Perilla oil (들기름, deulgireum) is pressed from perilla seeds, and Wikipedia's entry describes the oil from toasted seeds as a flavor enhancer, condiment and cooking oil in Korean cuisine. What the RDA storage test measured The RDA press release of 21 November 2016 is short. Researchers stored freshly pressed perilla oil at 4°C, 10°C and 25°C and tracked two lab measures of rancidity, the acid value (산가) and the peroxide value (과산화물가). At 25°C, ordinary room temperature, both values "급격히 늘어" (rose sharply) from week 20. At 4°C, the RDA reported no change in either value up to week 40. The release lists a 10°C group but, in the text I read, gives no result for it. Twenty weeks is about five months, and the release uses that figure itself. That clock started from oil that had just been pressed. A bot...

On September 1, 2026, Lotte Chilsung told Edaily it was cutting Chum Churum's alcohol content from 16% to 15.7%. That wasn't a one-off. Hite Jinro had already taken Chamisul Fresh from 16% to 15.7%, rolling that out from mid-June, according to Asia Economy . By the end of this month, OB's new "Chalrang" soju launches at 15%, and Hite Jinro's low-calorie "Jinro Light," on shelves since July, already sits at 11.7%, the lowest ABV a mainstream green-bottle brand has carried. Hankook Ilbo laid all four out in a piece published September 20. Brand Product Old ABV New ABV When Lotte Chilsung Chum Churum 16% 15.7% Announced Sept 1, 2026 Hite Jinro Chamisul Fresh 16% 15.7% Rolled out mid-June 2026 OB Chalrang (new) n/a 15% Launching late Sept 2026 Hite Jinro Jinro Light (new) n/a 11.7% On shelves since July 1, 2026 A Century Headed the Same Direction Soju wasn't always this gentle. Jinro's original 1924 r...

Mi-won's ingredient panel is short. On the bulk bag Korean restaurants buy by the kilo, the listed raw material is L-glutamic acid, sodium salt, 99% or more. The product listing for Mi-won S prints it as "원재료명: L-글루탐산나트륨 99% 이상." That single-ingredient purity is what makes people nervous about it, and it's also why "is MSG bad for you" keeps showing up in the same breath as Korean cooking. The question has a specific starting point, and it isn't Korean. On 4 April 1968, a Maryland pediatrician named Robert Ho Man Kwok wrote a short letter to the New England Journal of Medicine , volume 278, page 796, describing numbness, weakness and palpitations that started 15 to 20 minutes after eating at a Chinese restaurant. The letter itself, reproduced here , lists four possible causes: soy sauce, cooking wine, monosodium glutamate, high sodium content. It settles on none of them. NEJM titled it "Chinese-Restaurant Syndrome." Of Kwok's four guesse...

Salmonella pulled ahead of norovirus in 2024, becoming Korea's leading cause of food poisoning for the first time in three years. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's count for the year : 58 salmonella outbreaks, 32% of the national total, against 37 for norovirus. Outbreak numbers for salmonella were up 20% from the year before , while the patient count for it was down 25% over the same stretch. Salmonella infection usually means diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps within a day or two of eating, and it sends a share of patients to a hospital bed rather than just a rough afternoon at home. Kimbap is usually the first dish named when that story runs. Ask around r/KoreanFood about packing it for a hot-weather lunch and someone brings up a case from a few years back. Restaurants, not homes, carried most of the 2024 total. 154 of the 265 outbreaks and 2,593 of the 7,624 patients traced to food-service businesses, per the same Ministry statistics . Geography moved around a lot to...

Does gochujang go bad? Before answering that, one change comes first. Korean law replaced the term printed on food packages, effective January 1, 2023. Korean food packages used to show a 유통기한 (yutonggihan), a "distribution date" set for retailers. The law now requires a 소비기한 (sobigihan) instead, a "consumption date." Article 2(12) of the Food Labeling and Advertising Act , as summarized by Korea's own Ministry of Government Legislation, defines it as the period during which a food stays safe to eat if the storage method printed on the label was followed. A store's old sell-by window measured something else: how long the retailer could keep stock on a shelf. The switch covers anything manufactured, processed, or shipped for import from January 1, 2023, per the law's own supplementary clause (Act No. 18445, promulgated August 17, 2021, Article 2). Manufacturers got a one-year grace period to sell through old-style packaging; nothing made after 2023 is a...