By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
Doo-wop to bebop jazzy beats along with the smooth aroma of java beans penetrate every corner of warmly lit coffee republic Starbucks as java lovers eagerly line up for their morning caffeine rush. A tall latte held in one hand and what is that held in the other? A blueberry scone? Beep _ it's a custom-made traditional rice cake.
``Starbucks meets rice cakes _ that's real fusion. It's East meets West,'' said Yoon Sook-ja, the director of the Institute of Traditional Korean Food in a Korea Times interview yesterday.
With Yoon's tireless efforts to promote Korean food, especially rice cakes, major global coffee brand Starbucks began selling rice cakes in two of its 200 local shops last week.
``My heart still pounds thinking of the day when we signed an agreement to have rice cakes sold at Starbucks,'' said the 59-year-old, recalling last week's signing ceremony with Starbucks Coffee Korea CEO and Kyonggi Province Governor Kim Moon-soo.
The first move was made in January by the provincial governor, said Yoon, to promote Korean rice and raise it competitiveness against imported rice.
``He believed in order to boost rice sales, more had to be done than to simply stick with the old ways of promotion,'' she said. ``And Starbucks gladly accepted the offer to include rice cakes on their inventory list.''
Beginning with two shops in the downtown Seoul area, Mookyo-dong and Sokong-dong, sales are expected to expand further out to regions in and out of Seoul.
``It's interesting how people think eating bread is quick, cheap and easy, but when it comes to rice cakes, they pause for a minute,'' Yoon, a traditional Korean food professor of 30 years, said. ``They are stereotypes that can most definitely be fixed.''
And she has been doing so by founding the Institute of Traditional Korean Food in 2000, where she taught how to cook Korean food in a small scale.
After two years, the institute grew bigger and now in a 10-story building, traditional food museum, cooking classes, rice cake cafe and even a four-year college program are offered.
``A lot of things happen inside the building, but all of them work toward promoting Korean food a little bit more everyday,'' she said.
Yoon, who was the nation's first-ever professor to teach a traditional food class, has most recently taught as a full-time faculty at Baewha Women's College until she decided three years ago to focus only on her institute.
``There is so much to be done to let it be known to the world how delicious our food is,'' she said with excitement, emphasizing that one of the first must-dos is to standardize the recipe and cooking process.
The lifelong food expert pointed out how young housewives and foreigners have trouble making Korean food to taste ``just right.''
``It's because a lot of time the recipe says ``about,'' ``sprinkle,'' ``a little bit,'' instead of giving the exact measurement,'' she said. ``That's how our old mothers cooked back in the old days but the same description doesn't work for the younger folks today.''
To work around these problems, Yoon, who is already a published writer, is working on a new book to carry about 100 recipes with standardized descriptions in four different languages, including Korean, Japanese, English and Chinese.
``You won't believe how many Chinese and Western people enjoy Korean food,'' she said, adding that with the push from the ``hallyu'' wave, Korean food is growing popular as the ultimate well-being cuisine in many part of Asia. ``We need to make the most out of this timely advantage.''
Having a childhood dream of being a chef, Yoon says her mother cooked ``the most delicious food on earth'' and she wanted to become just like her.
``I'm so happy with the work I'm doing now because we're working toward removing the boundaries of Korean food as `ours' and making it into everyone's,'' the director said.
Yoon shared her hopes of making a Le Cordon Bleu of Korea, where foreigners come from all over the world to learn the traditional food here, just as students go to the France-based school to learn French cuisine.
``They can return to their own countries and all open a Korean restaurant,'' she said laughing. ``That would definitely be a fast way to spread the flavor.''
The renowned fancy food chef humbly says although she has mastered cooking hundreds of dishes, her favorite Korean food is ``kimchi (pickled cabbage)'' and ``dwenjang'' (soybean paste) soup.
``I had it this morning,'' she said, laughing as she corrected herself. ``In fact, I think I have it every morning.''