Customer Reviews

Growing up in a Korean Kitchen: A Cookbook

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first word that comes to mind is FINALLY! Finally, there is a Korean cookbook that contains almost every Korean recipe you could ever want. Finally, there is a Korean cookbook that keeps recipes authentic. Finally, there is a a Korean cookbook that I can turn to when my finicky in laws come for dinner! Growing up Korean-American it was hard to get recipes from my mother since as any other Korean-American knows Koreans never measure ingredients! I own at least 5 Korean cookbooks written in English and not one of them can compare to this one in it's comprehensive addition of recipes. There are 164 recipes in this book! In the author's attempt to remain authentic the gamut of recipes runs from the well known to the more obscure for those unfamiliar to Korean cooking. The recipes are fantastic.

This is a book for those who are both serious about Korean cooking and somewhat familiar with the techniqes involved. It is also a great book for those who are looking to fine tune their Korean cooking skills or add onto their repertoire of Korean dishes since after almost every recipe there are suggestions for ways to modify the dish. Just as every individual has a way of personalizing a recipe, the author does the same however, the author's personalization does not detract from the flavor that the dish should have.

I would think that this is not a book for those who are just looking to begin because the book lacks specific technical description of preparation and presentation. It would be difficult for someone who is unfamiliar with Korean food to know what the outcome should look like since pictures of the final product are rare. If you are just starting out or if you prefer detailed step by step pictures and instructions "Practical Korean Cooking" by Noh Chin Hwa is a great book, although not quite as thorough as this one but still authentic.

Many know Chinese, Thai and Japanese cuisine, eating it weekly, but few are familiar with or venture to cook Korean dishes. This book should correct this gap. The recipes in this book are influenced by royal Korean cuisine since they are based on the author's "Shin" family traditions, a clan that belonged to the Yangban family. One of 12 children raised in her family's Chongju City "house", she was exposed to many large meals, and celebrations that fed over 100 guests at a time. The book opens with a discussion of the Korean kitchen followed by a 15 page glossary of essential ingredients and utensils. Because these are classic recipes, some are complicated. This is followed by recipes for eleven essential sauces, such as a traditional soy sauce (kanjang) which takes 2 months to ferment. The book has over 50 recipes for main dishes, including 10 kimchi's; pickled cucumbers; pickled ginger; 13 soups, including seaweed, rice cake, and t'ang soups; mandu; and chatjuk pine nut porridge. There are over 80 recipes for side dishes, including seasoned eggplant and spinach; sauteed kelp; green onion salad; and a chilled radish salad (my saengch'ae) which can easily replace cole slaw as an American picnic staple. Stew recipes includes ones for tak tchim chicken stew and ch'aeso chongol vegetarian hotpot. There are recipes for 11 barbecues, as well as kimchijon, pinchajon, and puch'ujon pancakes. The book closes with several recipes for ceremonial dishes, desserts (including sighye punch and hwach'ae soup) and pori barley, ogote, yuja, ginseng, omija and ginger teas. Finally, every few pages, the author includes a shaded box that expounds on childhood, culinary or cultural memories as they relate to the recipe and food staple.

This isn't just a cookbook, it's a good book in general. The recipes become much more meaningful thanks to the author's explanation of how traditional Korean cooking methods are entwined with Korean culture.

I've looked through many 'Korean' cookbooks and never bothered with them because they really covered modern Korean-western fusion dishes, or referred to dishes by their traditional Korean name but gave instructions for very non-traditional preparation and presentation. If you're like me, you want a book that tells you how to make Korean food like Oma and Omanee made. This book fulfills that need 100%. It even goes so far as to tell you the tradional method for making your own soy saunce :)

I'm a complete novice cook (single guy) and, thanks to this book, I was able to make Ox Tail Soup correctly on my first try.

The ONLY negative comment I have is that the pictures are not in color, and none of the recipies show step-by-step pictures or illustrations. Still, the instructions are very clear so it generally is not a problem. But if you really want pictures for reinforcement, I'd recommend buying this book and another one with lots of pictures as a companion.

I have several Korean cookbooks (okay, I am a cookbook junkie and it is probably more like ten -- and, yes, there are at least ten out there, although many are hard to find and/or out of print, and then there is that whole subgroup of watered down ones written by Western missionaries that are . . . quaint). Until I found this one I mostly used Dok Suni by Jenny Kwak and Practical Korean Cooking (aka The Bible) by Noh Shin-Hwa. Dok Suni is great for a novice and has great stories about growing up Korean American. Practical Korean Cooking is like the Betty Crocker for Korean Food, step by step, and lots and LOTS of glossy colour pictures, but kind of skimpy on personality or writing and is known as the book Korean mothers give their daughters when they get married. Hepinstall's book bridges the gap between these two.

As with Dok Suni, Growing Up in a Korean Kitchen is written with much love and great memories about growing up in a Korean kitchen. Hers is that of a traditional Korean upper-class City household, and her book beautifully covers a comprehensive list of recipes including dishes traditionally reserved for the upper crust and royalty, replete with annecdotes and reminiscences from her childhood in a time and place that no longer exists. As I usually use cookbooks more as guidebooks than instruction manuals, I did not find the lack of pictures or "complete instructions" taxing; if you do, bundle this book with Noh's and you would have the whole package as recipe-wise, the books overlap a great deal, although the formats could not be more different.

I am an adult Korean adoptee whose rediscovery of my native culture began with my love of good, unWesternized Korean food. Everything I know about Korean food I had to learn through a tutor (she taught to to make kimchi [no measurements, mix with your hands, taste as you go, start with the informal i.e. easier kimchis and work your way up to the stuffed ones] and how to harvest fernbracken and seaweed), restaurants (I like the bustling country-style ones the best,and if they have those fat iron pots sunken into the floor out back, so much the better), and through my cookbooks. I recently moved out West and had to leave most of my cookbooks behind and like a fool I left this one in storage back East. I can remember how to make kimchi and banchan and pancakes and other favourites like yookgaejang, bibimbap, bulgogi, and kimbap, but anything else ---!!!! I miss it at least once a week, and that is more than I can say about the other nine!

I have been to Korea many times, I love Korean food and have found most Korean cookbooks unsatisfying. They usually simplify the recipes so much that the dishes taste like fast food. The wonderful thing I found about this cookbook is that it has the whole range of recipes -- from easy things to the more complicated dishes for more adventurous cooks. The other thing is this: I always look at cookbooks just before I go to sleep to think about what to make the next day and the book contains memoirs that provide really good nighttime reading. I got Sting's wife's cookbook last year -- which also has information about their family and it was neither interesting or moving as this one is. Plus, the recipes were so complicated that it was completely useless (unless you have a private cook like Sting does and he/she can spend all day cooking!). Anyway, this Korean cookbook will hold an important place in my kitchen.

Having a Korean mom and spending many years living in Korea, I never had the opportunity or desire to actually cook Korean food until recently. In Korea, we had household staff who cooked and cleaned. I was literally not allowed in the kitchen. A pity, since I love Korean food. But fortunately many Korean immigrants live in my area and there are many restaurants to choose from.

Recently I have developed into a wannabe gourmet cook, collecting and reading many cookbooks of various cuisines, and trying many new recipes in the kitchen. Hepinstall's book is the only one I've found available that so comprehensively contains all the traditional Korean dishes I crave, with a bounty of authentic recipes.

Some have complained that the recipes are complicated but I have no idea what these readers mean or what they expected. I found each recipe to be thorough but hardly complicated. Could there be shortcuts? Well sure, knock yourself out. You don't have to soak meats in cold water before making that soup or stew. I don't soak the oxtails for my favorite soup. But knowledge is a good thing. It's good to know traditional cooking techniques, whether you choose to follow them or not. Cookbooks are not bibles. Perhaps someone should write a Korean 30-Minute Meals, heh!

I've made my favorites and tried other dishes I've never had before, all to my satisfaction. One thing I haven't tried yet is making kimchee - maybe soon.

Like others have stated, the glaring drawback to this book is the lack of full-color photos of the finished dishes, let alone any of the steps in progress. Maybe a future edition of this fine book will add this.

To be fair, I've only made two recipes so far: the cucumber salad and the spinach salad. I should have known that something was not quite right when the recipe called for lemon juice and parsley, two ingredients that are never found in the Korean kitchen! Still, I toiled away for nearly 40 minutes, only to be told by my (very Korean) mother that it is too sweet and that I had wasted my time squeezing the cucumbers! She quickly threw together her Korean cucumber salad in about 10 minutes! Tasting them side by side, it really hit home that the version I made was definitely Americanized.

So if you're looking for unnecessarily labor-intensive, Korean-fusion cookbook, then this is the one for you. If you're looking for a good, solid, everyday Korean food cooking, then this is NOT it.

And what's up with the walnuts added to everything? My theory is that the author's family must have had a large walnut tree. ; )

And yes, I am Korean for those of you wondering.

I was thrilled when this cookbook was first released. I grew up with fantastic Korean cooking all my life, and was looking forward to having recipes written down that I could refer to when cooking mainly from memory.

After having owned the book for several years, I now realize that is exactly how I use the cookbook -- as a reference and reminder on how to do things. But I almost never follow a recipe to the letter. That may be because I am used to doing things the way my mother did, which may vary slightly from Hepinstall's method. But more often, I think it is because Hepinstall seems to add on extra steps to recipes which should be less complicated. When I read her recipes, I'm often inspired by the idea of the dish, but put-off by the numerous steps it would take to get to the final result. For those of you who are looking for quick yet tasty home-cooked Korean meals, I would suggest looking up "Flavors of Korea" by Coultup (sp?). The recipes are vegetarian, but I think even meat-eaters would enjoy the wonderfully spiced dishes.

If you love Korean cooking, and want to kick your home-cooking techniques up a notch, by all means invest in Hepinstall's volume. It is a valuable record of a style of Korean cooking that is rarely being practiced these days in Seoul. I especially loved the sections on making your own soy sauce and daenjang. I won't ever actually make my own soy sauce probably, but I like having a record of how it was done, just for posterity's sake.

I was born in Korea to a Korean mother and an American father. I love cooking Korean food and my friends and husband enjoy eating it. Ms. Hepinstall seems to be using what my family calls "city" or fancy recipes. Many of her foods do not have the "country" flavor that I am used to from the port city PoHang. BUT, the recipes are wonderful. I would recommend this book to seasoned cooks and patient students. While you can simplify some of her dishes, many are authentic and delicious. She loves using walnuts and the fancy sil kochu (which my family did not)- I leave those out often and just use coarse Korean red crushed pepper and taste no difference. Like all good cooks, you have to take her recipe and make it your own by experimenting. I love the pictures and the stories that accompany this book.

I own 8 Korean cookbooks - some in Hangul. This one by far is the book that most consistently yields good results. I had commented on this book when I first purchased it and gave it 4 stars. After years of use, I have to boost it one more star. There is nothing better than this out there.

If you want a simpler book that keeps authentic flavors alive, I recommend Dok Suni. My younger,less experienced sister owns that one and it's lovely. Happy Eating!

This collection of history, family, spirituality and food honors the Korean tradition of food and meal times far more than typical western collections of ingredients and instructions. Many Korean friends and my grandmother who grew up in Korea as a missionary sparked my love of Korean food but I didn't know much about how to prepare it. Hepinstall delivers a delightful exploration of both the food and the culture of Koreans. The section on BBQ and sauces is a favorite. Thorough, complete, easy to follow instructions...the only lacking element would be color pictures of the food and places explored in the book which would add a lot. For someone who is very selective about purchasing cookbooks...this one is well worth it.