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Why Korean food is so different from Chinese or Japanese food: a cuisine shaped by scarcity, not abundance (feat. my dinner)

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Why Korean food is so different from Chinese or Japanese food: a cuisine shaped by scarcity, not abundance (feat. my dinner)

https://preview.redd.it/dm1yjlj6va9g1.jpg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44e89d5e0c70394d60652151d335a163125e2a94

Hello from Seoul.
I took this photo of my dinner a few days ago—Suyuk-gukbap (boiled pork soup), Sundae (Korean blood sausage), and Makgeolli (rice wine).

Looking at this table, I realized it explains something important about why Korean food developed so differently from its neighbors.
It’s not just about flavor preferences. It’s about long-term adaptation to a harsh environment on the Korean Peninsula.

People often describe Chinese cuisine as incredibly diverse—and it is. A vast continent allows for regional abundance, oil-heavy cooking, and rich meat stocks. At first glance, Korean food might seem like just a subset of that larger spectrum.

But there is one key difference: Korean food historically uses very little oil.

1. Cooking without oil (Look at the pork)

Unlike many Chinese dishes that rely on frying and lard, the pork in my photo is boiled, not fried.

Historically, raising pigs for fat was difficult in Korea. Pigs compete with humans for grain, and grain was scarce. Cattle, on the other hand, were preserved for farming. As a result, Korean cooking evolved around boiling, steaming, and blanching, with only small amounts of plant-based oils like sesame oil.

This is why Korean food often tastes clean and light rather than rich or greasy. Interestingly, meals can feel filling while remaining relatively low in calories—a weakness in premodern times, but a strength in today’s health-conscious world.

2. Fermentation as a substitute for abundance (Look at the side dishes)

Scarcity also explains why fermentation became central, not optional.

  • Kimchi and radish kimchi preserved vegetables through long winters.
  • Saeujeot (salted shrimp) replaced meat stock, sugar, or heavy seasoning.
  • Makgeolli is fermented rice—nutrition, alcohol, and preservation in one.

Fermentation allowed Korean food to generate deep umami without relying on meat fat or large quantities of protein.

3. Using everything: food without hierarchy (Look at the Sundae)

The sausage-looking dish is Sundae, made from pig intestines filled with noodles, vegetables, and blood.

When resources are scarce, nothing is wasted. “Inedible” parts become delicacies.
Over time, this produced a food culture with surprisingly little class hierarchy—the ingredients and dishes eaten by elites and commoners were often very similar.

This is why, historically, the gap between what a “king” ate and what a peasant ate in Korea was much smaller than in many other societies.

Summary

This meal isn’t just dinner. It’s a portable history lesson.

Korean food is a high-efficiency survival system shaped by scarcity:
boiling instead of frying, fermenting instead of stock-making, using every part instead of discarding.

Ironically, these survival traits—low oil, fermentation, minimal waste—are exactly what modern people now consider healthy, sustainable, and low-carbon.

P.S.
Next time, I want to explore this further:
Why was the distance between royal and common food so small in Korea?
It turns out scarcity doesn’t just shape taste—it reshapes social structure too.

submitted by /u/Andrew_YH_Han
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