Food & Wine Festival 2010 Cuisine, Part 21: South Korea

Welcome to Part 21 in a series examining each of the national cuisines on display at the 2010 Epcot Food & Wine Festival. Today's port of culinary call: South Korea.

South Korea makes its debut this year at the Food & Wine Festival. You'll find the South Korean booth outside the China Pavilion.

Let's look at our menu:

Lettuce Wraps with Roast Pork and Kimchi Slaw

A Lettuce Wrap is a delicate "sandwich" that sheds its bread for a single large leaf of lettuce. It doesn't work well with all meats, especially those that require sauce, but in the case of Roast Pork the cool, crisp texture of the lettuce is a submissive partner that won't straitjacket the meat in dense dough.

Kimchi Slaw is a common Korean side dish dating back thousands of years and made in hundreds of different ways but always with fermented vegetables such as cabbage, onion, daikon radish, and cucumber. The vegetables are fermented in brine spiced minimally with ginger, garlic, and red chili - other spices (and vegetables) are added to the dish depending upon the region where it's prepared and the chef's sensibilities.

At the Festival, look for the kimchi to be piled atop the roast pork which will sit in its lettuce leaf ready for you to fold and eat. The briny kimchi should release enough moisture to keep the pork juicy and the lettuce leaf (unlike bread) won't soak up the flavor and turn gummy.

What a great dish! It's both traditional and portable, the two key elements of successful Festival fare. And, of course, tasty.

Barbecue Short Rib with Steamed Rice and Cucumber Kimchi

Unfortunately, the second dish, Barbecue Short Rib with Steamed Rice, isn't quite so portable, though it is every bit as traditional. What sets this barbecue apart from the typical American barbecue is the lack of lack of tomato: the flavor comes from brown sugar, garlic, soy sauce, and sesame oil. As an accompaniment, the Cucumber Kimchi will be less spicy, less briny, its purpose being to add some inoffensive crunch to the rib and rice.

Beverages

With both the roast pork and the short rib I'd have enjoyed a local beer, but I'm happy that the South Koreans offer a non-alcoholic drink - Honey Ginger Tea - for those who don't a local beer and who also don't want to sample the other two very unusual but very enticing alcoholic drinks.

The first is Soju, best described as a sweeter version of vodka, an inexpensive, clear spirit once made from rice but now supplemented with other grains or vegetables such as wheat, barley, and potato. Chamisul is a variety of Soju, the most popular variety in Korea, produced in vast quantity by a large local distillery, Jinro. Each Korean, on average, drinks over 100 bottles of soju per year, mostly by the shot glass, straight. Most brands of soju contain less (sometimes much less) alcohol than other spirits.

Even more tempting than soju, however, is the Bokbunjajoo, or black raspberry wine, the best complement for either the roast pork or the spare rib. The wine is a deep red color, not as sweet nor as mild as you'd expect: the alcohol content hovers between 15-20%, nearly in the lower range for soju. Festival bokbunjajoo comes from Bohae, one of the many breweries in South Korea that make it.

Taste It or Waste It

I like how the South Koreans chose simple but representative fare, especially the roast pork lettuce wraps which introduce perhaps the signature korean dish, kimchi, in the familiar American territory of roast pork. The short rib, in comparison, comes up slightly short, but if you've never tried Korean barbecue, you'll want to get your first taste here.

The lack of a sweet dessert is disappointing, though if you don't mind drinking your dessert, the bokbunjajoo will deliver just enough sweetness to offset the pork and kimchi. When you're down to crumbs and bone, use the soju as a climax to cleanse your palate for the next cuisine.