Culture that travels on a plate

Countries export more than finished goods, begins. They also export culture, and culture is often the freer traveler: a Korean drama can find viewers abroad, a Japanese animation can be praised far from home, and a meal can shape a first impression of a country before a museum ever does. Food culture sits closer to daily life than most of what we call culture. People look up a famous restaurant after they look up a famous site. The writer lines up the usual shorthand: India and curry eaten by hand, Japan and sushi or ramen or sake, Korea and kimchi for many visitors.

Once a dish leaves home, it may be adapted or kept stubbornly itself. It points to Chinese food remade in a Korean style, to sushi and ramen as both a quick lunch and a special night out, to Indian curry adjusted to local tastes, and to pasta, tacos, kebabs, Vietnamese noodles, churros, and bubble tea already sitting in ordinary Korean eating. Drink followed the same path. Soju and makgeolli still have their place, but sake, gaoliang, and French wine were already well loved, and imported beer had become cheap enough that people compared bottles. Wine itself arrived from France, Chile, the United States, and Australia, chosen by origin, price, sweetness, and acidity.

What the mart already held, and a guide that was then new

The writer had a concrete picture. A neighborhood mart already carried several kinds of affordable, decent Bordeaux. A slightly larger mart stocked finer French wines and Champagnes, including names like Romanée-Conti and Dom Pérignon. That is how the aisles looked to the writer at the time. It is not a claim about this year's prices or about what every store holds now.

The report set out to look at the influence and the actual state of French food and wine in Korean society. The writer chose the subject because French wine was already the most popular foreign alcohol in Korea — a claim left as the writer's, not as a new official ranking — and because French food culture is not only what is eaten. It is the order of appetizer, main, and dessert, the talk at the table, and what people hold most important when they cook. The culture itself is treated as a heritage of several hundred years, and as something that had already soaked into Korean life widely and deeply enough to be easy to share. If it had not been taken up completely, the discussion wanted to ask why, and how French values and Korean ones might differ. France is also a country of festivals and food tourism, with Paris full even in summer and festivals of wine and good cooking in every season.

Among Western food cultures the French one is among those that have entered Korea most deeply. It mentions the Michelin Guide as a famous way of telling good restaurants apart, and notes that the guide had 'recently' been introduced in Korea at the time of writing. The first Michelin guide to Seoul appeared around 2016–2017. The word 'recently' stays a note from the time of writing, not yesterday's news. The title also promises a general assessment and a forecast.

Sources

1. the influence and actual state of French food and wine in Korean society, including everyday mart wine and a then-recent note on the Michelin Guide's arrival in Korea.

Last updated: 14 November 2026