As an SFS student, I pride myself on my perceived cultural sensitivity and awareness. Having grown up in a multicultural household, I was always the one who brought “weird” food for lunch that my friends looked at curiously.
But those lunches were only Italian and actually not all that different from the American diet. I’ve come to realize that just having an intimate knowledge of European culture does not transfer to understanding all of the many other traditions that exist.
My first time eating at Yechon, a Korean and Japanese restaurant in Virginia, was quite an experience. I grew up in northern New England, raised by two very European parents. Sure, I frequented the local Thai food kitchen, but I was not exposed to the East Asian cuisine very often.
The salmon at Yechon was excellent, cooked to the perfect degree. But it was served with fresh ginger, a combination I had never experienced before. Used to small doses of ginger in desserts like apple pie and gingerbread cookies, the combination was shocking in my mouth.
I was wary at first. The unique flavor reminded me of perfume, an idea which repulsed when I was eating. But once I got used to the sweetness, I was able to appreciate its combination with the salmon much better. In fact, by the end of the meal, I was wishing for more.
I began to think more closely about the other aspects of my meal. The waitresses who served us, all of whom were highly attentive and unintrusive, were very different from typical waitresses I’d had in the past.
These waitresses barely spoke to us, and didn’t overplay the chattiness, as is usually the case in classic American restaurants. By force of habit, I expect that servers will make lots of forced, friendly conversation. In truth, this new service was a sigh of relief.
Although I am sure there are aspects of Yechon that have inevitably been Americanized, to the outsider’s eye it all seemed very authentic. Even my friend from Korea who brought us to the place called it real Korean food. Such high praise was good enough for me.
Most of us in the SFS, and probably Georgetown in general, have both a deep and long-held interest in the rest of the world. I have thought of myself as culturally aware and knowledgeable both in the realms of history and current world politics.
Maybe my understanding was much more limited than I had previously thought. This experience made me uncomfortable, not by virtue of the different cultural practices that I was attempting to understand, but because of my own ignorance.
Of course, my fellow diners and the lovely servers were not to blame because the problem was not external: rather, it was an internal discomfort caused by a feeling of failing myself. I was not as worldly as I had thought.
It was a delicious meal notwithstanding my lack of cultural background, and after wobbling out of the restaurant with well-formed food babies, we visited the Korean bakery next door. It had a huge array of traditional sweets, notably genuine Italian gelato. I didn’t understand the combination.
The shelves were full of Korean flaky pastries filled with tropical jams, but the signs on the walls advertised caramel macchiatos and croissants. Apparently these pastries weren’t even completely authentic.
I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t a purely traditional bakery, but then I realized Koreans are also feeling the effects of globalization, and that I shouldn’t constrain such a bakery solely to “traditional” sweets.
This was a Korean bakery in America. I didn’t know how to appreciate that. My whole experience in the restaurant next door had taught me that I, a European American, could love Korean barbeque. I guess I should have seen it coming that Korean Americans would surely love gelato.
There’s a learning curve for my insensitive Western palate, but my first new goal is to finally learn to use chopsticks respectably. Maybe I should have enrolled in the School of Foreign Sustenance.
