Customer Reviews

Flavours of Korea: With Stories and Recipes from a Korean Grandmother's Kitchen

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is interesting in that Marc writes about his Korean grandmother who immigrated to Hawaii and created adaptations of Korean cooking. For instance there are recipes for Korean pancakes that closely resemble the American kind that you with Aunt Jemima Syrup on them. Some of the dishes are close but they are more or less adaptations or interpretations of Korean cooking. They are not dishes the way Korean nationals would cook them. Being Korean and after eating Korean food for 35 years; I found some of the dishes unrecognizable.

The stories are interesting though and the text is well written.

I was given this book by one of my Korean friends after I expressed an interest in learning how to cook Korean food. The recipies are easy to follow for those not familiar with the ingredients and processes of cooking Korean. I also enjoyed the stories that the author included about his grandmother and his travels to Korea. I have recommended this book to friends who want to learn about Korean food.

Marc Millon writes wonderful stories about Korean and his grandmother's kitchen, but several of the recipes were not very authentic-but more or less adaptations or interpretations of authentic Korean cuisine.

I really enjoyed reading this book as much as I loved trying the recipes. Every one I tried was delicious, especially the pibimbap, the kuksu and, of course, the pulgogi. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Korean cooking.

We have a Korean friend who visited us recently. Inspired by her cooking, I checked the local library. This was one of the books I found. This was by far the best of the library's selections. Korean cooking is much more palatable to the Occidental palate than, say, Japanese cooking. For instance, Koreans eat beef. Our friend is a master cook and so I was looking for a cookbook whose recipes were as close as possible to the way I observed our friend cooking; and this book was it. Not only are the recipes authentic and simple, made the way Yong Sun cooked for us while she was here, the commentary shares the culture in a way that makes me eager to visit Korea some day. And I finally found a kimchi recipe that I like (and can eat without losing all feeling in my tongue...)

I like this book but I don't think I would recommend it for novices as there is a dearth of useful illustrations. There is a central section with some nice color plates but one largely has to guess at what the finished recipes are supposed to look like. The recipes are quite good though, and one can read the book from cover to cover as the recipes are interspersed with the authors' journal of a trip to Korea and family reminiscences. I enjoy flipping through it looking for ideas.