Why is rice so prevalent at our Seattle Korean restaurant? Because rice is astonishingly important to Korean cuisine. In Korea, rice is so synonymous with food that the common Korean parlance for “Have you eaten?” is “Bap mogeon nya?”, which translates literally to “Did you eat rice?”
This shows us yet another of the key philosophical differences between dining in Korea and dining in the West. While an American meal generally centers around the meat course, Korea builds a meal entirely around the carbohydrates, or grains. In Korean, a meal is said to consist of “busik” and “jusik” components, the former referring to side dishes and the latter referring to the part of the meal that features rice. Either category can be eaten entirely by itself, but, while jusik without busik is still a meal, busik without jusik doesn’t count as more than a snack.