Food Cultures
Between Korea and Japan
As a neighbor of Korea and Japan, the members of northeast Asia, have you ever considered what their food culture would like to be? When it comes to food culture in area of northeast Asia, rice is the most common food and people often use chopsticks. Despite these similarities, in fact, there are many differences between Korea and Japan.
Appetizer
To start with, the appetizer serving order differs between Korea and Japan. In Japanese restaurant, there is a series of appetizer serving order. They will offer sashimi at first, and then grilled, steamed, simmered food, and deep-fried food will be served one after another. However, in Korean restaurant, they don’t have this kind of appetizer serving order. The appetizer is often served as combo at the same time. Before the first dish arrives, there is self-service area let you fill the appetizer, just like a buffet that it is unlimited to get more if you want. Thus, we can find that they have different ways to serve the appetizer.
Japan
Korea
Dinning Etiquette
Another difference between these two food cultures is their dining etiquette. Japanese think making a big sound when eating ramen is respectful to the chef. There are two opinions about this behavior. One is that it seems to show that ramen is delicious, and the other is that they want to eat ramen soaked up with more broth. They try to seize the best moment to enjoy it, and thus they eat quickly so that they make a big sound when eating ramen. On the other hand, Korean consider making a big sound during meals is very rude to elderly.
Ramen
Besides, In Korea, we shouldn’t touch or move the rice bowl during the meal because they think that holding up the rice bowl is seem to be a low-class behavior, especially beggars who often raise their bowl to beg for the food. In contrast, in Japan, people think that a good posture when eating rice is to hold up the rice bowl and to let the bowl close to mouth. However, leaving the rice bowl on the table is regard as a bad posture because they reckon that bending over to eat rice is an impolite behavior as a dog.
Korean Rice Bowl
Through the examples of making sounds during meal and holding rice bowl, we can know that Korean and Japanese have different concepts of dinning etiquette.
Utensils
Last, these two food cultures differ in ways of using utensils. Although both Korean and Japanese use chopsticks, Korean chopsticks are flatter than Japanese chopsticks. The purpose of this design is to avoid dropping when bringing meals. In addition, they both have a set of principles for using utensils. In Korea, spoons are used to fill the soup and eat rice; chopsticks are only used to pick up the side dishes. Different from Korea, Japanese often use chopsticks to eat rice. Thus, we can conclude that Korean use spoons more often.
In conclusion, both Korean and Japanese view rice as a food staple, and the chopsticks often appear on their tables, while there are still many differences between these two food cultures include appetizer serving order, roles of using utensils, and dining etiquette. Through making a comparison with these differences, we can know more about their food cultures. When we travel to Korea or Japan next time, we can follow their table manners more easily and avoid making mistakes due to confusing the different concepts of their food cultures.