Regional & International
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Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED COOKBOOKS OF 2022-Time, Food52, Eater, Food & Wine, Thrillist, Book Riot
An homage to what it means to be Korean American with delectable recipes that explore how new culinary traditions can be forged to honor both your past and your present.
"This is such an important book. I savored every word and want to cook every recipe!"-Nigella Lawson, author of Cook, Eat, Repeat
New York Times staff writer Eric Kim grew up in Atlanta, the son of two Korean immigrants. Food has always been central to his story, from Friday-night Korean barbecue with his family to hybridized Korean-ish meals for one-like Gochujang-Buttered Radish Toast and Caramelized-Kimchi Baked Potatoes-that he makes in his tiny New York City apartment. In his debut cookbook, Eric shares these recipes alongside insightful, touching stories and stunning images shot by photographer Jenny Huang.
Playful, poignant, and vulnerable, Korean American also includes essays on subjects ranging from the life-changing act of leaving home and returning as an adult, to what Thanksgiving means to a first-generation family, complete with a full holiday menu-all the while teaching readers about the Korean pantry, the history of Korean cooking in America, and the importance of white rice in Korean cuisine. Recipes like Gochugaru Shrimp and Grits, Salt-and-Pepper Pork Chops with Vinegared Scallions, and Smashed Potatoes with Roasted-Seaweed Sour Cream Dip demonstrate Eric's prowess at introducing Korean pantry essentials to comforting American classics, while dishes such as Cheeseburger Kimbap and Crispy Lemon-Pepper Bulgogi with Quick-Pickled Shallots do the opposite by tinging traditional Korean favorites with beloved American flavor profiles. Baked goods like Milk Bread with Maple Syrup and Gochujang Chocolate Lava Cakes close out the narrative on a sweet note.
In this book of recipes and thoughtful insights, especially about his mother, Jean, Eric divulges not only what it means to be Korean American but how, through food and cooking, he found acceptance, strength, and the confidence to own his story.
An homage to what it means to be Korean American with delectable recipes that explore how new culinary traditions can be forged to honor both your past and your present.
"This is such an important book. I savored every word and want to cook every recipe!"-Nigella Lawson, author of Cook, Eat, Repeat
New York Times staff writer Eric Kim grew up in Atlanta, the son of two Korean immigrants. Food has always been central to his story, from Friday-night Korean barbecue with his family to hybridized Korean-ish meals for one-like Gochujang-Buttered Radish Toast and Caramelized-Kimchi Baked Potatoes-that he makes in his tiny New York City apartment. In his debut cookbook, Eric shares these recipes alongside insightful, touching stories and stunning images shot by photographer Jenny Huang.
Playful, poignant, and vulnerable, Korean American also includes essays on subjects ranging from the life-changing act of leaving home and returning as an adult, to what Thanksgiving means to a first-generation family, complete with a full holiday menu-all the while teaching readers about the Korean pantry, the history of Korean cooking in America, and the importance of white rice in Korean cuisine. Recipes like Gochugaru Shrimp and Grits, Salt-and-Pepper Pork Chops with Vinegared Scallions, and Smashed Potatoes with Roasted-Seaweed Sour Cream Dip demonstrate Eric's prowess at introducing Korean pantry essentials to comforting American classics, while dishes such as Cheeseburger Kimbap and Crispy Lemon-Pepper Bulgogi with Quick-Pickled Shallots do the opposite by tinging traditional Korean favorites with beloved American flavor profiles. Baked goods like Milk Bread with Maple Syrup and Gochujang Chocolate Lava Cakes close out the narrative on a sweet note.
In this book of recipes and thoughtful insights, especially about his mother, Jean, Eric divulges not only what it means to be Korean American but how, through food and cooking, he found acceptance, strength, and the confidence to own his story.
Editorial Reviews
"Drawing heavily from his Atlanta family's culinary heritage, New York Times food writer Kim maps out the intersection of Korean and American fare in this bold and delicious debut."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This is such an important book: an enquiry into identity, and a rich repository of memories and deliciousness. And, as deeply personal as it is, it invites everyone into the kitchen with such brio. I savored every word and want to cook every recipe!"-Nigella Lawson, author of Cook, Eat, Repeat
"Eric Kim is a triple threat: great writer, elegant innovator, and sublime aesthete. Korean American is far more than a collection of essential recipes and deeply felt memories; it is an important ode to a beautiful family."-Min Jin Lee, author of Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko, a finalist for the National Book Award
"Eric's book is wonderful. Every page shows his personality and good taste, and the recipes are inventive, fun, and traditional all at the same time! Very Korean and very American-with lots of kimchi."-Maangchi, author of Maangchi's Big Book of Korean Cooking
"In Korean American, Eric Kim gives his readers bold new recipes and expansive yet grippingly personal essays, but also a model for the dream mother-child relationship in Jean and Eric: mutually adoring and understanding, with unlimited room for connection and growth. I've never read a book like it, and didn't know how much I needed it."-Kristen Miglore, author of Genius Recipes and Genius Desserts
"The recipes in Korean American are nuanced and multi-layered, flirting constantly between harmony and tension."-Cool Hunting
"This is such an important book: an enquiry into identity, and a rich repository of memories and deliciousness. And, as deeply personal as it is, it invites everyone into the kitchen with such brio. I savored every word and want to cook every recipe!"-Nigella Lawson, author of Cook, Eat, Repeat
"Eric Kim is a triple threat: great writer, elegant innovator, and sublime aesthete. Korean American is far more than a collection of essential recipes and deeply felt memories; it is an important ode to a beautiful family."-Min Jin Lee, author of Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko, a finalist for the National Book Award
"Eric's book is wonderful. Every page shows his personality and good taste, and the recipes are inventive, fun, and traditional all at the same time! Very Korean and very American-with lots of kimchi."-Maangchi, author of Maangchi's Big Book of Korean Cooking
"In Korean American, Eric Kim gives his readers bold new recipes and expansive yet grippingly personal essays, but also a model for the dream mother-child relationship in Jean and Eric: mutually adoring and understanding, with unlimited room for connection and growth. I've never read a book like it, and didn't know how much I needed it."-Kristen Miglore, author of Genius Recipes and Genius Desserts
"The recipes in Korean American are nuanced and multi-layered, flirting constantly between harmony and tension."-Cool Hunting
Readers Top Reviews
Kaitlyn M. Capps
I don't even know where to begin. This cookbook is everything you would want it to be AND MORE. The design, the writing, the recipes are all 10/10. Eric Kim's ability to create delicious, comforting and approachable recipes truly amazes me. This book radiates everything I love about food and cooking. If you are on the fence about buying...hop off...and BUY IT RIGHT NOW.
James CarterJames
This cookbook is surprisingly good, and I’m enjoying working my way through it. The recipes I’ve tried so far (shrimp and grits, ribeye steak, and maple spam) have been big on flavor and low in effort. Seriously I was surprised by the serious flavor hit you get with the shrimp and grits. My wife who normally won’t even taste grits loved that one. The author has a very relaxed zen vibe that makes this book a pleasant read. He seems to make a point to exclude needless complexity and make things easy for the cook. And while it’s a cookbook it’s also a little bit of a story about how he spent his pandemic lockdown developing this cookbook with his mother Jean, and the experience of learning from and bonding with her. There is a larger theme of what it means to be Korean American and it has implications for conversations people have these days about “authenticity” in food and questions what it even means. I’ve only gotten to the part where I am going to make Kimchi but since that is going to take a month or so it’s time to post the review. I give it an enthusiastic 5 stars. The only minor quibble I have is I don’t like the formatting that much. Occasionally a quote will be blown up into a text box and then I end up reading that quote twice, and sometimes it’s not really a profound enough statement worth reading twice. Trivial issue. Synopsis: There is a pantry section where ingredients are described, and Korean as well as English spellings are provided in case the Asian grocery has items with no English translation (nice). Some name brands mentioned but I’d prefer a few more name brands be mentioned to help those of us with zero experience. Units mostly imperial but metric weights provided where needed, like for baking. Every recipe has a picture Links appear to work appropriately on kindle, but may require an extra page flip to get to the exact section on occasion I’ve only noticed one error so far and it’s an extraneous sentence fragment that can’t be highlighted which may just be an error specific to my download. (P 82 “staple of the Korean pantry) Chapters for 1. Quick recipes, 2. kimchi, 3. soups, 4. rice dishes, 5. fish, 6. vegetables, 7. feasts, and 8. baked + dessert items Complete list of recipes below Recipes **Quick to prepare foods** * Pan-Seared Rib Eye with Gochujang Butter * Three Dinner Toasts: Gochujang-Buttered Radish Toast, Soft-Scrambled Egg Toast, and Roasted-Seaweed Avocado Toast * Bucatini with Roasted Seaweed * Gochugaru Shrimp and Roasted-Seaweed Grits * Maple-Candied Spam * Jalapeño-Marinated Chicken Tacos with Watermelon Muchim * A Lot of Cabbage with Curried Chicken Cutlets * Salt-and-Pepper Pork Chops with Vinegared Scallions * Cheesy Corn and Ranch Pizza with Black-Pepper Honey * Meatloaf-Glazed Kalbi with Gamja Salad **Kimchi ...
HJJames CarterJam
Just like the title, this book brings Korean and American together in such a harmonious way and I absolutely love it. I've known the author, Eric Kim, through New York Times Cooking for a while and have made his recipes before, so when I heard this book was coming out, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Sure enough, it did not disappoint. This book truly shows Eric's personality - you can almost hear him speak through the book. Each recipe is traditional, but inventive at the same time in a way as in it is very Korean but American at the same time. All of his recipes are easy to follow and inviting, ingredients don't scare you nor hard to find, there are lots of pics for visual readers and learners, and his writing is so endearing and comforting. I've made several foods from the book such as Curried Chicken Cutlets, Maple-Candied Spam, Budae Jjigae, Gyeranbap, Kimchi Fried Rice, Microwave Gyeranjjim, and Milk Bread with Maple syrup and they all were great. Easy, no fail, comforting, and delicious. Unlike some of cookbooks, Eric's recipes are so inviting and make you want to cook in the kitchen. If you're a Korean food lover and would like to start from somewhere, I highly recommend Eric's book. You won't be disappointed!
HJJames Carter
Loved sheet pan bibimbap so much I sprung for the whole cookbook and boy am I glad. I’ve made 5 recipes in the short week I’ve had it and everything has been delicious and much easier to put together than envisioned. I don’t have an Asian grocery store close by and that hasn’t proved to be a problem. Eric does a great job guiding towards what taste good for you and providing lots of optional ingredients. The recipes range in difficulty which is helpfully highlighted by the sectioning. His stories are charming and the food is absolutely delicious. I can’t wait to dive into some of the more complicated mains!
Meg S. HJJames
This book is fantastic! The content, from the gorgeous photography to the satisfyingly descriptive background stories of each dish, is extensive, and it is clear that the author has put a lot of heart into this cookbook. I really appreciate how he made the ingredient section a fun and educational read (yes, he did entice me to actually read the part I usually skip). Kim recognizes the differences among how foodies often use the word "authentic" and forewarns readers that this book is specific to the culinary traditions of his family, nostalgic family photos and memoire-esque prose included. A joy to explore, readers will really feel like they're getting to know the author and his food. This book makes Korean cooking so much more approachable. I tried several recipes and they all came out great (Korean friend approved), largely in part due to Kim's clear instructions and tips. Thank you to NetGalley and Clarkson Potter for allowing me to review this treasure!
Short Excerpt Teaser
Introduction
When I was seventeen years old, I ran away from home. College acceptance letters had just come in, and my mother, Jean, had torn into all of mine before I could come home from school that afternoon. I was so angry with her for opening my mail that I packed a bag in the middle of the night, took the car with the GPS, and drove from our house in Atlanta (where this story begins and ends) to Nashville (where my cousin Semi lived, four hours northwest). In the morning, when Jean saw that my bed was empty and my toothbrush gone, she called me, over and over. In my very first act of rebellion as her son, I didn't pick up.
I remember that trip to Nashville distinctly because Semi and I cooked coq au vin together. By then, as an avid watcher of the Food Network, I had tried my hand at a variety of non-Korean dishes, mostly flash fries and quick pan sauces, but never a proper braise. It was liberating to braise chicken with red wine on Semi's tiny stove, not least because that just wasn't how we cooked back in Georgia. My mother's Korean soups and stews were vociferously boiled, the meat made fall-apart tender in stainless-steel stock pots or burbling earthenware called ttukbaegi. Slow-cooked dishes in general were a whole new frontier for me and wouldn't become a fixture in my home cooking until years later in New York, where I would eventually go to college, take an internship at the Cooking Channel, and buy a yellow Dutch oven with my first paycheck. But for now, at seventeen, tucked away in Semi's Tennessee bachelorette pad, I tasted freedom for the first time in my life. A vast world of pleasures had opened up to me, pleasures that had, until then, been reserved for adults who get to cook whatever they want, however they want, in kitchens that aren't ruled by their parents.
When I came home a few days later, Jean brushed it off, pretended it was a nonissue that I had run away. But she did bring it up at dinner that night: "So, did you have a good trip?" Even then I could tell that she was practicing her loosened grip on me, her second son, the one who never got into trouble. Over a plate of her kimchi fried rice, which she had made for my homecoming (and would continue to make for many homecomings to come), I told her how I had been feeling, paralyzed at that great nexus between childhood and adulthood. I ran away because I needed some space, I explained. Though I didn't say it at the time, she knew what I really meant: I ran away because I needed some space from her. This hurt my mother greatly, I could tell. But she smiled and nodded and listened anyway. Seeing that effort-and the hidden worry in her face-was enough to thaw my cold, ungrateful heart. I burst into tears and apologized.
In many ways, I feel that I've been running away from home my whole life. I'm only just now, as an adult, starting to slow down and find my way back to Atlanta, where I was born and raised, to understand its role in my overall story. After a lifetime of running around, I've come to appreciate the stillness of rootedness. It took spending more time, too, in the kitchen as a food writer and journalist, first as an editor for publications like Food Network online and Saveur, and now as a columnist for The New York Times, to make me realize that we can never really run away from who we are. Not easily, anyway. This lesson was expounded for me during the pandemic, when I moved back home for one year to work on this cookbook with my mother. I wanted to write down her recipes, but as I got deeper and deeper into the project, I came to the conclusion that my recipes are an evolution of her recipes, and the way I cook now is and will forever be influenced by the way she cooks. This book, then, tells the constantly mutating story of how I have come to understand my identity not just as Jean's son, but also as someone who has always had to straddle two nations: the United States (where I'm from) and South Korea (where my mother is from). Too often I have felt the pangs of this tug of war: Am I Korean or am I American? Only recently have I been able to fully embrace that I am at once both and neither, and something else entirely: I am Korean American.
As is often the case with cooking, there are many answers to be found in the kitchen. The recipes in here explore that tension, and the ultimate harmony, between the Korean in me as well as the American in me, through the food my family grew up eating and the food I cook for myself now. At the end of the day, this is all, for me, food that tastes like ho...
When I was seventeen years old, I ran away from home. College acceptance letters had just come in, and my mother, Jean, had torn into all of mine before I could come home from school that afternoon. I was so angry with her for opening my mail that I packed a bag in the middle of the night, took the car with the GPS, and drove from our house in Atlanta (where this story begins and ends) to Nashville (where my cousin Semi lived, four hours northwest). In the morning, when Jean saw that my bed was empty and my toothbrush gone, she called me, over and over. In my very first act of rebellion as her son, I didn't pick up.
I remember that trip to Nashville distinctly because Semi and I cooked coq au vin together. By then, as an avid watcher of the Food Network, I had tried my hand at a variety of non-Korean dishes, mostly flash fries and quick pan sauces, but never a proper braise. It was liberating to braise chicken with red wine on Semi's tiny stove, not least because that just wasn't how we cooked back in Georgia. My mother's Korean soups and stews were vociferously boiled, the meat made fall-apart tender in stainless-steel stock pots or burbling earthenware called ttukbaegi. Slow-cooked dishes in general were a whole new frontier for me and wouldn't become a fixture in my home cooking until years later in New York, where I would eventually go to college, take an internship at the Cooking Channel, and buy a yellow Dutch oven with my first paycheck. But for now, at seventeen, tucked away in Semi's Tennessee bachelorette pad, I tasted freedom for the first time in my life. A vast world of pleasures had opened up to me, pleasures that had, until then, been reserved for adults who get to cook whatever they want, however they want, in kitchens that aren't ruled by their parents.
When I came home a few days later, Jean brushed it off, pretended it was a nonissue that I had run away. But she did bring it up at dinner that night: "So, did you have a good trip?" Even then I could tell that she was practicing her loosened grip on me, her second son, the one who never got into trouble. Over a plate of her kimchi fried rice, which she had made for my homecoming (and would continue to make for many homecomings to come), I told her how I had been feeling, paralyzed at that great nexus between childhood and adulthood. I ran away because I needed some space, I explained. Though I didn't say it at the time, she knew what I really meant: I ran away because I needed some space from her. This hurt my mother greatly, I could tell. But she smiled and nodded and listened anyway. Seeing that effort-and the hidden worry in her face-was enough to thaw my cold, ungrateful heart. I burst into tears and apologized.
In many ways, I feel that I've been running away from home my whole life. I'm only just now, as an adult, starting to slow down and find my way back to Atlanta, where I was born and raised, to understand its role in my overall story. After a lifetime of running around, I've come to appreciate the stillness of rootedness. It took spending more time, too, in the kitchen as a food writer and journalist, first as an editor for publications like Food Network online and Saveur, and now as a columnist for The New York Times, to make me realize that we can never really run away from who we are. Not easily, anyway. This lesson was expounded for me during the pandemic, when I moved back home for one year to work on this cookbook with my mother. I wanted to write down her recipes, but as I got deeper and deeper into the project, I came to the conclusion that my recipes are an evolution of her recipes, and the way I cook now is and will forever be influenced by the way she cooks. This book, then, tells the constantly mutating story of how I have come to understand my identity not just as Jean's son, but also as someone who has always had to straddle two nations: the United States (where I'm from) and South Korea (where my mother is from). Too often I have felt the pangs of this tug of war: Am I Korean or am I American? Only recently have I been able to fully embrace that I am at once both and neither, and something else entirely: I am Korean American.
As is often the case with cooking, there are many answers to be found in the kitchen. The recipes in here explore that tension, and the ultimate harmony, between the Korean in me as well as the American in me, through the food my family grew up eating and the food I cook for myself now. At the end of the day, this is all, for me, food that tastes like ho...
