Korean food culture in hand
The master chef Jong-im Lee of K-style hub introduces KU IWC students to Korean cuisine
Learning about the Korean tradition of eating tteok-guk to get “one year older” in the cooking class
Students make tteok-guk with dumplings by themselves in the cooking class

The Korea University International Winter Campus (IWC) hosted an event for its student on Friday, January 6, at which they had a chance to cook and taste Korean cuisines. “The event was planned for foreign students from Australia and South East Asia, who want to experience Korea’s winter food,” IWS Staff Surin Kang said.

After the Friday lectures, the students went to the K-Style Hub in Jung-gu, Seoul. The master chef of the K-Style Hub, Jong-im Lee, a graduate of the Food Engineering Ph.D. Program at Korea University (KU), welcomed the students. Lee introduced the students to tteok-guk, a Korean traditional cuisine: Koreans eat tteok-guk on New Year’s Day, for the tradition says that you eat it to get one year older. In addition, the name of tteok-guk’s main ingredient, garetteok, which is a type of long rice cake, translates as longevity. Students learned about Korean culture and history before they started to cook tteok-guk.

Lee first gave a demonstration of how to cook tteok-guk before the students tried it themselves. Despite difficulties at first, each of the students soon began to take up the task and found him/herself to be good at cooking the dish. Some students marinated the beef and others made dumplings. The kitchen was filled with laughs thanks to the mistakes made from time to time. 

They also tasted their own food. Many students shared their tteok-guk with others, for they found each of their dishes looked and tasted unique. “The ingredients themselves were not unfamiliar to us,” Yihua Qian and Connoe O’Brien (Queensland University, Australia) said, “but the way of cooking them, the Korean way, turned them into a very unique Korean cuisine, which was pretty fun and impressive.”

“Many of them had lots of trouble at the beginning, but they all seem satisfied with the result in the end,” said Gyuhyun Park, a Student Buddy for the IWC, “I am happy to have helped them to have a good experience about Korea.”

Having begun on Wednesday, December 28, the KU IWC has five more weeks remaining. In addition to the regular courses, the IWC plans to provide other “Experience Korea” programs such as a calligraphy class and a ski trip for the students.