This edited volume includes a baker's dozen of chapters by scholars at Korean and American institutions, organized around four major themes: moving from colonialism and hunger to food sovereignty; national cuisine in the era of globalization; food practices in multicultural Korea; and food tourism as related to food crisis. Because food and foodways can serve as a marker of social status and belong to the domain of customs and beliefs, as well as offering intersections with many other economic and political factors, this interdisciplinary work collects research from diverse fields including political science, communication studies, geography, and nutrition…the writing throughout is unmistakably scholarly[.] Recommended.

Choice Reviews

Communicating Food in Korea is a valuable contribution to the relatively new and burgeoning field of food studies. Editors Jaehyeon Jeong and Joong-Hwan Oh approach their topic from uniquely non-Western angles (all 23 contributors are native Korean), using a variety of analytical techniques (historical method, interview, questionnaire, and textual analysis), and covering a very wide swath of topics. Organized under sections on colonialism/hunger to food sovereignty, national cuisine in a globalization era, food practices in multicultural Korea, and food tourism and food crisis, the book plumbs the depths of Korean food culture to show that cuisine acts as a major means of social communication and cultural signification. For these reasons, Communicating Food in Korea is groundbreaking, comprehensive, and eye-opening, welcomed in the research arena, classroom, and the policy-making offices.

John A. Lent, Professor Emeritus, Temple University

This fascinating edited volume provides thought-provoking and theoretically rich insights into diverse scholarly issues, including the construction of traditions, identity, (post-)colonialism, nationalism, globalization, neoliberalism, and cultural hybridity in Korean cuisine in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book is a valuable addition to the ever-growing canon of food scholarship in Korean cuisine from varied disciplines. Anyone interested in Korea or in food culture will be captivated by this multi-dimensional account of the intersection between food, culture, history, and society.

Seok Lee, University of Pennsylvania

[This] volume contributes to the literature in a number of fields, and sheds light on the complexity—and richness--of a food culture only now being recognized in the U.S. mainstream. Perhaps most significantly, it offers perspectives from within a culture not often seen by Western scholars, providing a more global context for examining issues of crucial concern.

Journal of Folklore Research

This collection of essays is a good introduction to current food policies and practices in South Korea as of the second decade of the Twenty-First Century. It provides an ample historical background and an ample bibliography for the new reader unfamiliar with these developments. Many of the essayists suggest directions for future research. Given the rise of South Korean food worldwide and its connections to South Korean cultural developments, especially K-Pop, this research should continue. The book is appropriate for upper-division and graduate students in the social sciences and in policy programs.

Food Anthropology