{"id":260148,"date":"2026-01-30T08:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/?p=260148"},"modified":"2026-02-05T10:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T09:49:09","slug":"north-korean-cuisine-in-south-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cookinc.it\/en\/2026\/01\/30\/north-korean-cuisine-in-south-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korean cuisine, in South Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

In South Korea, Google Maps is not commonly used. As a result, one of the first pieces of advice you’ll find in any well-indexed article on “what to do in South Korea” is to download a “local” app, such as Naver Map or Kakao Map. However, this is not just a matter of choice. Authorities in Seoul restrict the export of detailed map data to organizations in other countries in order to safeguard national security. The reason behind this restriction is both simple and complex: South Korea has been in a state of war with its northern neighbors for over 70 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the Korean War \u2013 one of the episodes that most risked igniting the Cold War after the Second World Conflict \u2013 ended in 1953 with an armistice, no peace treaty has ever been signed between the two states. It’s curious, in a somewhat macabre way, how the border \u2013 the DMZ, demilitarized zone \u2013 still disputed on paper, is now one of the most popular tourist attractions on a classic trip to South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1948, when the Korean peninsula was divided into two nations following the end of Japanese occupation, one under Soviet influence and the other under U.S. influence, North and South Korea have represented opposite models of development, one being state-socialist and the other liberal-democratic-capitalist, embodying the most grotesque and baroque aspects, perhaps even more so than the United States and the Soviet Union. Two paths, now running parallel, which had previously followed the same historical trajectory from the 1600s to the 1940s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although there are geographic differences (the North is more mountainous and cold), the Korean peninsula is rather uniform from a historical, ethnic, and, in some ways, religious perspective: it is not the puzzle of beliefs and peoples of the Balkans, and the 38th parallel border was not a geographical limit of nationalist claims, like many in Europe before the two World Wars or in post-colonial Africa. “Simply” recent historical and political conditions have created a seemingly irreparable rift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this chessboard, the traditional cuisine of the two Koreas inserts itself among economic and social differences, building new and porous boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two states share some dishes, with slight differences in spiciness in the South and, of course, in terms of the availability of ingredients in the North: kimchi<\/em> – fermented cabbage; mandu <\/em>– dumplings; or dishes to “compose” like bibimbap<\/em>. Despite the already mentioned geographical differences that affect farming and breeding, the fact that some recipes are very similar is quite natural when considering, for example, that border regions were only divided when the North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel in 1950.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This, of course, “on paper,” rather than \u00e0 la carte: North Korea is perhaps the most impenetrable country on the planet and certainly one of those that guard the daily life of its inhabitants with the most jealousy. Today, for anyone, it would be almost impossible to discover what is eaten at a typical family table, even considering that the very few people granted entry into the country have access only to the reality staged by the Kim Jong-un regime, with banquets served in semi-deserted hotels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The traditional cuisine thus needs to be reconstructed through the recipes of refugees who have moved to the South over the years<\/mark>, where they have recreated a piece of home even through the stoves of their new homes and thanks to the opening of restaurants serving dishes from their culture. Similar to what happens with Italo-American cuisine in some ways, it is a complex philological work, where memory and reality tend to unravel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Seoul, just a few hundred meters from the Namsangol hanok village, there is Pildong Myeonok, a restaurant that serves many dishes from the North Korean tradition, famous for its Pyongyang Naengmyeon: a cold soup named after the capital of North Korea, made with a very light broth of dongchimi<\/em> (radish kimchi) with pork, beef, and hard-boiled egg, served with buckwheat noodles. Other dishes on the limited menu include jeyuk<\/em>, boiled pork slices served with mustard, mandu<\/em>, and suyuk<\/em>, a mixed boiling dish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In general, in the cuisine of North Korea, there is a greater use of vegetables and tofu. Considering the various famines in recent years and a not very widespread prosperity (to use an understatement), it is easy to imagine that the most well-known dishes are now revisited with even less meat or with a more widespread use of potatoes, both compared to a few decades ago and in menus found beyond the DMZ. Other dishes include injogogi-bap<\/em> \u2013 a rice dish with imitation meat, a street food that began to spread, not by chance, during the famine of the 1990s; gamja tteok<\/em> \u2013 a dark-colored rice cake; dubu bap \u2013 a kind of fried tofu calzone filled with rice seasoned with sauces and spices; horangi tteokguk<\/em>, a soup for special occasions; uhbokjaengban<\/em>, a highly complex dish that could be compared to a hot pot, with vegetables, meat, and dumplings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is very different what happened in South Korea. The country has lived a history opposite to that of its neighbors for about seventy years, strongly influenced by both American and Japanese culture, as well as by the tastes of tourists who have domesticated its culinary orthodoxy over time. An echo that has also translated into a sort of “junkization”: one of the most popular dishes is the corn-dog, a fried sausage on a stick type confection coated \u2013 if you want \u2013 with cane sugar, which comes in dozens of different variations: with cheese, potato breading, bacon, or with the classic tteokbokki<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternatively, a passion for melted cheese out of control has led to the invention of a dish that has become typical: cheese dakgalbi<\/em>. It consists of spicy stewed chicken cooked in an iron pot (cheolpan<\/em>) directly on the table, on which copious amounts of mozzarella are poured, causing it to melt and stretch when heated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A trip to Seoul or Busan, or even better to cities and small towns closer to the border, dining at restaurants serving North Korean recipes is an experience akin to that of stepping into a time capsule. It’s easy to imagine how precious this is for exiles who have been welcomed by South Korea: rediscovering a past to soften its absence and reconstruct it out of necessity, giving life to a tradition that may now be central between the two Koreas, much like the 38th parallel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In South Korea, Google Maps is not commonly used. As a result, one of the first pieces of advice you’ll find in any well-indexed article on “what to do in South Korea” is to download a “local” app, such as Naver Map or Kakao Map. However, this is not just a matter of choice. 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