'Korean food needs global recognition'

Chef Judy Joo / Courtesy of Judy Joo

Judy Joo calls for attention to Korean American chefs

By Yun Suh-young

The World Hansik Festival is underway in Seoul until the end of this week, an all-out effort to get Korean food better known, but there's one Korean-American chef who is truly frustrated with the limited recognition of Korean food and culture globally.

"Korea is slowly making an impact. I still get a lot of stupid questions. Some people think Korea is a tropical country. They don't understand where Korea is on the map. I'm glad the Winter Olympics are coming up," said Judy Joo, in an interview with The Korea Times on Sept. 20, during her visit to Seoul.

Joo is a popular chef and TV personality who has her own show "Korean Food Made Simple" broadcast on Food Network in the United States. The show airs internationally in 13 different countries.

Joo has a dramatic professional history, from life as a financier to a chef, which has caught the media spotlight since her debut on the Iron Chef UK as the only female contestant and only Asian finalist. The Columbia-graduate quit her well-paying job as an analyst after five years at Morgan Stanley to go to the French Culinary Institute to pursue her passion. Since then, her life took a turn and she landed in London, where she's lived for the past 13 years. She’s since written food columns, appeared on TV shows and now has her own restaurant Jinjuu in two locations, London and Hong Kong, since 2015.

She comes to Seoul every now and then but what brought her to the city this time was to find investors for the third season of her show, "Korean Food Made Simple."

"I have world-wide distribution, no other Korean chef in the West has that kind of distribution. I'm probably the most successful Korean media chef worldwide. And yet I can't get funding. For seasons 1 and 2, most of the funding came from government agencies in Korea because it's an esoteric cuisine _ it's not one of the blockbusters of the food network," she said. But with what happened with the previous government, things just got hazy.

"Everyone knows so much about Japanese and Chinese food and it's so frustrating. I was trying to get a Korean food show for four, five years before it actually got picked up. I've been knocking on doors and everyone said no, no, no and it wasn't until America was ready to say 'Okay, Korean food is just becoming trendy enough.' Then I was like 'Finally!' I was pitching it so much for a long time. It took much effort."

Passion for Korea

When asked why she was trying so hard, she said Korea deserves to be in the spotlight.

"Korea was the unsung hero. Most people can name Japanese, Chinese food by name and know what a kimono looks like but nobody knows what hanbok is or (any) Korean words. Kimchi is now slowly becoming an ubiquitous word but the Japanese have done a brilliant job in marketing themselves and promoting their culture. Why not Korea?

"So with my TV show, I was very adamant. Nothing on the set isn’t Korean. Even chopsticks, crockery, brassware, spoons... everything is Korean. I want to showcase Korean culture because we have such a beautiful culture," she said.

Her efforts had been paying off, especially in the U.S., where she was born and raised.

"I get emails from the middle of nowhere from Kansas, saying they want to go to Korea and they bought gochujang on Amazon after watching my show. That's rewarding. My success story is if I can get somebody to try gochujang, that's the globalization of Korean food." She purposefully uses the Korean words for names of ingredients like gochujang (red pepper paste) because she wants to educate the global public.

"I think it'll go global," said Joo about the prospects of Korean food. "But they (the Korean government) need to empower the gyopo (Korean American). They need to use Corey Lee, Roy Choi, myself. There's a tendency when there's a large event or something, they fly everybody from Korea. They should definitely be using Corey Lee for that. He's got three Michelin stars. Use us as the consultants. We would love to help. We are the bridge. Being bicultural is a totally different thing. We know what's going to work," she said.

"Because I'm bicultural, I can really break it down so it's accessible and welcoming to the home cook _the mother_ and make it easy. That's how you globalize it. People can't be scared of it. They have to think it's doable, welcoming, accessible and inviting."

Her philosophy is well reflected in her restaurant which is meant to be fun with a hip and cool vibe.

Judy Joo at work at her restaurant Jinjuu / Courtesy of Judy Joo

"We won the best design in the bar and restaurant award. We have a DJ. I'm showcasing Korean culture in every single way, making cocktails with Hwayo soju, adding makgeolli in desserts, using yuja, omija. People love it. They love something new. Flavors are bold. It's fun," she said.

Rather than pursuing fine dining which is what she learned in school and at top restaurants she worked for, Joo went for the casual.

“

Fine dining is fun once in a while, but when it came to a restaurant, I wanted to do cozy food that reflects me _ I don't have pretense. My food hugs you back. I wanted to make a cool Korean restaurant because there wasn't anything like that at all in the Western world," said Joo.

Life is serendipitous

But it's not like she had planned or dreamed of opening her own restaurant. In fact, it was nowhere on her agenda.

"It happened by accident. Most of my life happened through serendipity. I wasn't planning on it at all. I was ready to move back to New York after going through a divorce. I wanted to go back home to friends and family. That was three years ago. Then I got a phone call from my now business partner who said there's a lease in Soho and (asked) 'why don't we do something together?' And the rest is history," she said.

"Hong Kong happened the same way. A young girl happened to dine in Soho and loved it and her father happened to be a large businessperson in Hong Kong and he loved it. He said he wanted to open the restaurant there and we opened it. It's random. It's serendipity."

Life, she says, never turns out the way she plans, which is why she doesn't make plans.

"When I went to cooking school, I thought I'd be having cool birthday parties for my kids. It was definitely a hobby at the beginning. I was totally a dilettante. I was too tired from working in finance. I've only been doing it super seriously for the past five years when my marriage started falling apart. So that lit a fire under my butt. I never thought I'd be a restaurateur, or on Iron Chef UK or have my own show. I never thought I'd be single at this age or anything. So you really can't plan life," she said laughing.

Forty-two, single, divorced and without kids _ the way she put it _ but her eyes were twinkling with curiosity and passion like anyone in their twenties.

"My most precious commodity is time. I have no time. I don't even have time for myself. At the same time, I feel blessed to be busy, to have the opportunity to tell my story to you, and to be jet-setting around the world. I'm fortunate."