New cookbooks from Sarah Ahn and Roy Choi take different approaches to Korean cuisine

Summary

NPR's Book of the Day: Exploring Modern and Traditional Korean Cuisine

Release Date: May 2, 2025

In the May 2, 2025 episode of NPR's Book of the Day, host Andrew Limbong delves into the vibrant world of Korean cuisine through the lenses of two distinct cookbooks by renowned chefs Roy Choi and Sarah Ahn. This episode offers listeners a comprehensive exploration of how Korean food evolves, balancing tradition with modern innovation.

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Roy Choi’s “The Joy of Cooking”: Reinventing Korean Cuisine with a Veggie Twist

Roy Choi, the culinary mastermind behind the famed Kogi Barbecue food trucks in Los Angeles, is celebrated for his groundbreaking Korean-Mexican fusion dishes like Korean short rib tacos and kimchi quesadillas. In his first full-length cookbook, “The Joy of Cooking,” Choi takes a transformative approach by emphasizing vegetables, marking a significant shift from his meat-centric beginnings.

Breaking Away from Tradition

Choi explains to host Elsa Chang (00:43) that his new focus on vegetables stems from a personal quest to overcome his addiction to unhealthy food:

Roy Choi (00:43): "I needed to break my own addiction to unhealthy food."

This personal journey led him to prioritize plant-based ingredients without sacrificing flavor, aiming to make healthy eating both exciting and approachable. Choi’s philosophy centers on rebranding vegetables to make them as appealing and flavorful as traditional meat dishes.

Reinventing the Veggie Experience

A key discussion point revolves around the often-overlooked presentation of vegetables in dishes like crudités. Choi and Chang dissect the conventional blandness associated with vegetable platters:

Roy Choi (08:03): "We have unfairly branded vegetables. Like, I think about the word broccoli, that's like synonymous for..."

Choi advocates for diversifying dips and enhancing the preparation methods to elevate vegetables from mere accompaniments to star ingredients. This mindset is vividly illustrated in his cookbook, where vegetable-centric recipes are showcased with bold flavors and innovative techniques.

Notable Quote:

Roy Choi (08:50): "Diversify your dips, people."

Choi's commitment to vegetables is not just a dietary preference but a philosophical stance on food culture, making “The Joy of Cooking” a pivotal contribution to contemporary Korean cuisine.

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Sarah Ahn’s “A Korean Mom’s Kitchen Wisdom and 100 Family Recipes”: Preserving Tradition Through Family Recipes

In contrast to Choi’s modern, vegetable-focused approach, Sarah Ahn teams up with her mother, Nam Soon Ahn, to present “A Korean Mom’s Kitchen Wisdom and 100 Family Recipes.” This cookbook is a heartfelt homage to traditional Korean cooking, aiming to preserve and transmit familial and cultural heritage through meticulously documented recipes.

Embracing Heritage and Family

Sarah Ahn discusses with Lisa Mullins (10:10) the deep-seated motivation behind the cookbook:

Sarah Ahn (12:02): "If we don't learn how to make kimchi the way our ummas make it, part of our identity would diminish as well."

The collaboration with her mother underscores the intergenerational transmission of culinary knowledge, ensuring that authentic Korean flavors and techniques are accessible to an American audience. The book focuses on foundational dishes like kimchi, highlighting its pivotal role in Korean culture.

The Essence of Kimchi

A significant portion of the conversation centers on kimchi, described as the cornerstone of Korean identity:

Sarah Ahn (13:48): "Kimchi is our identity. It's our pride, and it's a huge staple of our cuisine."

Ahn elaborates on the variations included in the cookbook, such as napa cabbage kimchi and the more traditional pogi kimchi, emphasizing the balance between preserving authenticity and appealing to diverse palates. She also addresses the adaptation of traditional methods, like using fresh Fresno chili to achieve a refreshing spiciness that resonates with both Korean and non-Korean tastes.

Innovative Yet Traditional Recipes

Beyond kimchi, the cookbook features recipes designed to introduce beginners to Korean cooking. One standout recipe is the seasoned soybean sprouts with imitation crab, which exemplifies the blend of traditional ingredients with modern twists:

Sarah Ahn (16:34): "All you do is you steam the soybean sprouts so that they're cooked, and then you drain it, and then you squeeze the soybean sprouts..."

This dish, among others, is crafted to be both accessible and deeply rooted in Korean culinary traditions, making it perfect for those looking to explore Korean cuisine authentically.

Notable Quote:

Sarah Ahn (15:49): "Kimchi is our identity. It's our pride..."

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Concluding Insights: Balancing Tradition and Innovation in Korean Cuisine

The episode masterfully contrasts Roy Choi’s contemporary, health-conscious approach with Sarah Ahn’s dedication to preserving traditional Korean flavors. Both cookbooks, though differing in focus, celebrate the richness of Korean culinary arts and its capacity to adapt and thrive in diverse cultural landscapes.

Roy Choi champions a reimagined Korean cuisine that prioritizes vegetables, promoting health without compromising on taste. His work encourages a rebranding of vegetables, making them appealing and integral to modern Korean dishes.

Sarah Ahn, on the other hand, ensures that the essence of Korean home cooking is not lost in translation. By documenting her mother's recipes, she creates a bridge between generations, safeguarding the authenticity and cultural significance of Korean food.

Final Thoughts: The episode underscores the dynamic nature of culinary traditions, highlighting how both preservation and innovation are essential for the evolution of cuisine. Whether you’re seeking to explore new, vegetable-forward dishes or yearning to connect with time-honored family recipes, both Roy Choi’s and Sarah Ahn’s cookbooks offer valuable insights and inspirations.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Roy Choi (00:43): "I needed to break my own addiction to unhealthy food."
• Roy Choi (08:50): "Diversify your dips, people."
• Sarah Ahn (12:02): "If we don't learn how to make kimchi the way our ummas make it, part of our identity would diminish as well."
• Sarah Ahn (15:49): "Kimchi is our identity. It's our pride..."

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This episode of NPR's Book of the Day serves as an enlightening guide for food enthusiasts looking to deepen their understanding of Korean cuisine’s past and future, offering both innovative recipes and cherished family traditions.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's Empire's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbong, and today we are talking about Korean food. Now, any cuisine goes through changes as it gets passed down from generation to generation. But because so much of culture is wrapped up in food in a lot of ways, holding onto traditional forms of cooking is a way of holding onto your culture. In a bit, we'll hear from a social media cooking star who wrote a book about learning to cook from her Korean mother. But first, let's throw all that talk about tradition out the window for a bit. Roy Choi is a chef who got famous for his Korean Mexican food truck, Kogi Barbecue. Pretty much whenever I'm in la, I try to get my hands on, I don't know, some sort of burrito filled with Korean short ribs or bulgogi. But in his new cookbook, the Choi of Cooking, there is a heavy emphasis on vegetables. And up ahead, he tells Emperor's Elsa Chang that he needed to break his own addiction to unhealthy food. That's coming up.

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[Roy Choi]

The Chef Roy Choi is a legend here in Los Angeles. So when I heard that he wanted to cook something with me, I was like, heck, yeah.

[Elsa Chang]

And you go in and the kitchen feels like a food truck.

[Roy Choi]

Oh, it's tight.

[Elsa Chang]

It's really tight. Butts be buttoned in here.

[Roy Choi]

Oh, yeah. Butts be buttoned.

[Elsa Chang]

Butts be buttoned, yeah.

[Roy Choi]

Choi made a name for himself with his roving Kogi barbecue food trucks which offer Korean short rib tacos, kimchi quesadillas. I mean, he put Korean Mexican fusion on, on the map here. And now he is out with his first ever full on cookbook, the Joy of Cooking. And today, in his teeny, tiny kitchen at the Alibi Room in West la, he is going to show me his ways.

[Elsa Chang]

You can't take your eye off this. You have to be fully engaged because the difference between delicious and burnt is minuscule.

[Roy Choi]

We're frying up eggs, hash browns, tofu and K kimchi on the flat top griddle here. For Choi's take on the breakfast burrito, we throw down our massive tortillas, which she's gonna show me how to roll right up. Should I do Max filling?

[Elsa Chang]

No. Oh, not for your first time. Okay.

[Sarah Ahn]

Okay.

[Elsa Chang]

Okay, that's advanced level.

[Roy Choi]

All right. Okay, now we pile on the hot stuff, top it with cheese, cilantro, onions, and a ginger sesame slaw.

[Elsa Chang]

And then now roll it.

[Roy Choi]

So sides first.

[Elsa Chang]

Sides first, then this side over, and then you're gonna go over pinky and over.

[Sarah Ahn]

Boom.

[Roy Choi]

Really? Yeah.

[Elsa Chang]

Amazing. Amazing.

[Roy Choi]

Boom. Okay, but now the moment of truth. Could I, Elsa Chang, replicate the burrito mastery of the Kogi King himself? Well, there's only one way to find out. You know what they love on npr? You know what sound they love the most?

[Elsa Chang]

Asmr.

[Roy Choi]

Mouth sounds.

[Elsa Chang]

Okay, let's do.

[Roy Choi]

This is good.

[Elsa Chang]

As you eat that, like, you don't think about the fact that it doesn't have meat.

[Roy Choi]

No.

[Elsa Chang]

Right. You're just in there.

[Roy Choi]

There's so much flavor.

[Elsa Chang]

So much flavor. It's like, it's rude. It's in your face. It's. It's punk rock, but it's good for you.

[Roy Choi]

I mean, this is a guy who rose to fame selling beef. The name of his food truck literally means meat in Korean. But now Choi is on a quest to elevate the humble vegetable. It is the biggest chapter in his new cookbook. And this move towards a healthier veggie obsessed Roy Choi was a necessity for him, he says, a way to break what he calls an addiction to junk food and huge portions.

[Elsa Chang]

So a gallon of ice cream, I couldn't. You know, a pint was just like a. Like a hors d'oeuvre, like a deviled. A pint was like a deviled egg, you know? You know, and so it had to be a half gallon or a gallon. You know, a corner slice of lasagna was like eating a crudite. So it had to be the whole tray.

[Roy Choi]

Yeah.

[Elsa Chang]

If I ate less, people would ask me, what's wrong?

[Roy Choi]

Are you okay?

[Elsa Chang]

Are you okay?

[Roy Choi]

Eventually, Choi met a customer at one of his taco trucks who got him to think differently about how he ate. And that nudged him down a new path towards cooking veggie forward meals that are actually good for you. And that does not mean boring. The choice of cooking, he says, is about making healthy eating exciting and approachable.

[Elsa Chang]

Because if you look at a lot of health food items and wellness, the wellness industry, things are packaged in a way that are very unfamiliar to someone that hasn't grown up around it or hasn't made a conscious choice to get there.

[Roy Choi]

Did you set out wanting to make the vegetable chapter the biggest chapter.

[Elsa Chang]

I don't think in terms of structure. We thought that way, but in terms of philosophy. Yes.

[Roy Choi]

Because you say, like, we don't treat vegetables with the respect they deserve.

[Elsa Chang]

You know, vegetables should curse. Like, they should be brash and curse. And they should, like, have their tongue out, you know, like a cheeseburger. Like, you know, like, it should look like the point of view of the double. Double, you know, like, that's how a vegetable badass, you know, badass food porn in your face. Like, it should be Spinal Tap 11, you know, and that's really what it should be. And that's why the vegetables were the biggest chapter, because that's the essence and philosophy of this book is like, I want you to cook that dish in that chapter and forget that you're not cooking meat. I want you to even think that you're cooking meat.

[Andrew Limbong]

Right.

[Elsa Chang]

Because the recipes are designed as if there was meat in there, you know? And that's kind of the goal of it.

[Roy Choi]

It's so true. We have so unfairly branded vegetables. Like, I think about the word broccoli, that's like synonymous for. Like, give me the practical information I need. Like, just what's the broccoli and what you're actually saying, you know, like you're.

[Elsa Chang]

But if you do it in slang, broccoli means cheese, it means cheddar, it means money, you know, it means. It means weed, you know. Yeah, yeah, right? It means marijuana. So. So if you. If you take the. If you take the slang of the essence of the feeling of it and put a recipe and a perspective behind it, then maybe people can start eating vegetables.

[Lisa Mullins]

Yeah.

[Elsa Chang]

Because they're smoking weed and weed is a plant.

[Roy Choi]

Right.

[Elsa Chang]

You know what I'm saying?

[Roy Choi]

People love plants.

[Elsa Chang]

People love plants.

[Roy Choi]

All right, so show me, like in this book, how you rebrand a couple of your favorite vegetables. Give me the Roy Choi rebrand.

[Elsa Chang]

Okay. Yeah, it definitely needs a rebrand. And so if you look at the veg head chapter, we'll just start from the top. You got watermelon, kimchi. Right? That's something that everybody loves. A fruit cart. Yeah, everybody loves a fruit cart when they see a fruit cart.

[Roy Choi]

Absolutely.

[Elsa Chang]

But they don't always love fruits when they're put on a plate. Right. But then if you put watermelon into a kimchi form, then all of a sudden their minds are blown. They're like, I gotta try it. Yeah, you gotta get.

[Roy Choi]

It's goird is unexpected.

[Elsa Chang]

Unexpected. You gotta create some curiosity, you know? Crudites. This is the biggest one. Crudes is the hugest one in this book. Crudites have the worst branding.

[Roy Choi]

I agree.

[Elsa Chang]

In the world.

[Roy Choi]

That's the plate. I skip when I'm at a buffet or I'm at a friend's house, I'm like, no, I'm gonna go to the crackers and the cheese.

[Elsa Chang]

Yes.

[Roy Choi]

Not the cut up vegetables.

[Elsa Chang]

Because what's crudite? In most cases it's usually the, the machine cut carrots that are kind of rounded.

[Sarah Ahn]

Yeah.

[Roy Choi]

So they're dried out.

[Elsa Chang]

They're dried out celery and dried snow peas and maybe.

[Roy Choi]

Maybe radishes.

[Elsa Chang]

Radishes. And it's served with like hidden valley ranch dressing. And then, and then they're also associated with PTA meetings and mom and school meetings. Right. Because who, what is always brought to meetings is brownies, cookies and crudite platters. So how do you make vegetables exciting? Raw vegetables exciting. You go to the farmer's market and get really great vegetables. But that's not going to solve the problem. A crudite platter is not the crudites, it's the dips. It's the dips.

[NPR Sponsor]

Yeah.

[Elsa Chang]

You know, it's all about the dips. And that's the problem with the marketing behind crudites is that you're only serving it with ranch dressing or really bland hummus. You have to diversify your dips. And so.

[Roy Choi]

So it's a dip platter and the vegetables just the spoons for the dips.

[Elsa Chang]

Exactly. And you have to make them spicy, you have to make them garlicky, you have to make them funky. You have to all of that stuff. So in this book we have all of that.

[Roy Choi]

Diversify your dips people. The book is called the choy of cooking. It's out now and it is the first full cookbook from the co owner, co founder and chef of Kogi Barbecue, Roy Choi.

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[Andrew Limbong]

Wrote her new cookbook with her mom Nam Soon Ahn. So it's not a surprise that it's titled A Korean Mom's Kitchen Wisdom and 100 Family Recipes. She talks to Here Now's Lisa Mullins about the heavy histories behind some of the recipes in the book. Here's Lisa.

[Lisa Mullins]

Sarah Ahn and her mother, Nam Soo Ahn, have become Internet stars. Sarah has created Instagram and TikTok videos of her mom cooking traditional Korean family recipes. Now the two have written a new cookbook called Amma. The title, as Sarah explains in one of her videos, is especially meaningful, means mom in Korean.

[Sarah Ahn]

And in the Essence of Cooking. Korean moms embody the true art of home cooking, creating meals that heal and nourish.

[Lisa Mullins]

Sarah put the book together with the help of America's Test Kitchen. That's where Sarah is the social media manager. It's already number two on the New York Times bestseller list. As Sarah told me, her mother was initially hesitant about writing a cookbook.

[Sarah Ahn]

Korean Food what I've learned it's very easy to make, but there's a lot of easy steps that you have to do in order to make it truly at an ummma's level, a Korean mom's level. And she was aware of that going into it, and she didn't want to disappoint Korean anyone. And so she knew it was going to be a big labor of love. And being the wise woman that she is, she knew that without even knowing much about cookbooks and what she was getting herself into.

[Lisa Mullins]

I wonder if she ever used a cookbook when she was growing up.

[Sarah Ahn]

So my mom didn't grow up with Korean cookbooks or any cookbooks at all. I think for Koreans, this cuisine is founded in the women making food for their family and whomever they love to get them through the harsh winter months. That's kind of how it started.

[Elsa Chang]

And.

[Sarah Ahn]

And so she really learned how to cook just through watching her mother. And measuring spoons was not a thing. I had to teach her how to use it for this cookbook. A lot of those cooking methods and whatnot is just taught intuitively and just measured by the handful, by the spoonful, no real measurements.

[Lisa Mullins]

Did she think you were being unduly strict or disciplined to have the temerity to use a tablespoon?

[Sarah Ahn]

At first, she couldn't take it seriously. It felt almost like they were toys to her. And when I told her how to level a tablespoon, because when I told her use 1 tablespoon, she would use like a heaping tablespoon, and I'm like, oh man, that's not a tablespoon. Then. And then I showed her how to level it with a knife. And she was like, oh, my goodness, this is so ridiculous. But the funny thing is that after we finish this cookbook, she actually uses measuring spoons now because it gives you the precise, consistent recipes that deliver that same delicious recipe that you would have to guess with freehanding and adjust constantly.

[Lisa Mullins]

So she was learning from you, and you were learning from her, as I guess you always are. Can you tell us how you first decided what you wanted to translate from your mom's hands to this cookbook and a mainly American audience?

[Sarah Ahn]

We really wanted to pass down recipes that would carry on the traditions and legacy of Korean cuisine. You know, I'm Korean American, and I'm starting to lose how to speak Korean just by living here. And of course, I can become fluent in it. And it's my fault that I'm not fluent. But I learned that if I don't put in the effort to learn Korean, my ability to speak this language and pass it down, it's going to diminish. And that's the same with food. If we don't learn how to make kimchi the way our ummas make it, part of our identity, I felt like, would diminish as well. And so it was very important to us that we share recipes that has been passed down through generations and to continue that, because if not now, then when.

[Lisa Mullins]

Sarah I think that kimchi is one of those things that most people know about Korean food. It's this fermented and salted vegetable dish, a staple and known to be very spicy. Maybe you can tell us a little bit more about it.

[Sarah Ahn]

Kimchi is our identity. It's our pride, and it's a huge staple of our cuisine, if not the biggest staple. It's a food that we're incredibly proud of, and that pride comes from what kimchi did for us. It's the one food that they ate when they couldn't afford white rice. It's the one food that they ate after the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. My mom only grew up eating kimchi, and so it carries a lot of weight and significance that I want people to know and I honor in the book.

[Lisa Mullins]

And what's special about the kimchi recipes that you have in the book?

[Sarah Ahn]

I think there's two things. I think the first one is that we have two kimchi recipes that particularly use napa cabbage. Napa cabbage Kimchi is what most people are familiar with. The one that you can get at grocery stores, the one that you get at Korean barbecue. It's usually cut, but in our book, we have the cut version and the uncut version. The cut version, the taste is pretty similar across the board. Every Korean cook has their own twist on it, depending on the region that they come from. But we also have an uncut version in the book known as pogi kimchi. And this kimchi, when you taste it and when I first tasted it, it was so traditional. And I knew instantly this was something that my grandma made. And when my mom finalized that recipe and shared it with my dad, my dad said, this brings me back to the old days when we struggled but all bonded over kimchi that got us through the harsh winter months. And so I think those two kimchi being in the book really honors the cuisine and what kimchi did for Koreans. And I also think she uses fresh Fresno chili, which imparts a very refreshing spiciness that complements the more neutral spiciness of gochugaru, Korean chili pepper flakes. And so whenever we have relatives from Korea come over and they try our kimchi, the first thing that they ask, even though they're from Korea, is what is in your kimchi? Because it's just so amazing, and it's the fresh chili pepper.

[Lisa Mullins]

For people in the United States, how is kimchi best served, especially if you're a bit of a spice wimp?

[Sarah Ahn]

So I would say kimchi is best served the way maybe Korean kids are introduced to it. Korean moms run it underwater so that they can, you know, dilute the spice a bit. And that's how we kind of become accustomed to kimchi. And as we get older, that spiciness becomes dull to us, and we don't taste that spice. So that's one way a beginner can enjoy kimchi. But we also include kimchi that doesn't include any gochugaru in the kimchi, such as our tongchimi kimchi, which is water radish kimchi.

[Lisa Mullins]

So aside from kimchi, what's a good starter recipe for anybody who wants to cook Korean food?

[Sarah Ahn]

I would say the seasoned soybean sprouts that has imitation crab in it, which is my mom's little spin on it. But all you do is you steam the soybean sprouts so that they're cooked, and then you drain it, and then you squeeze the soybean sprouts, and then you mix in the ingredients, which is, you know, chopped up green onions, sesame seed, fish sauce, garlic gochugaru, and shredded up imitation crab. You just gently mix it up, and that's it.

[Lisa Mullins]

And you serve that room Temperature, Room temperature or cold. Okay, so this is like one of the dishes, if you go to a Korean restaurant that they put out first, one of the great little appetizers in a small bowl.

[Sarah Ahn]

Oh, yes, the banchan, which is the. Yeah, the small dishes. If you go to Korean barbecue, it's the many small dishes that make up the majority of the table.

[Lisa Mullins]

And you have a recipe for fried chicken here. Now, it might be interesting. I'm guessing that you probably have tried Southern fried chicken since you've been here, or at least Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I wonder if you can compare what Korean fried chicken is like.

[Sarah Ahn]

Like, I would say the taste when it comes to Korean fried chicken is that there's a little bit of Asian influence in it in there that's very subtle. So when it comes to our Korean fried chicken, there's a little bit of MSG seasoning, salt, which is an ingredient that we truly respect and talk about in the book that destigmatizes the stigma behind this ingredient. We also use just, you know, a pinch full of curry powder. You won't taste the curry in our Korean fried chicken, but it adds this umami, nuanced taste that's almost unidentifiable. But you notice something's there that you just can't. You can't name what that ingredient is. And then we also use Korean frying mix, which is a flour mix blend that has these perfect seasoning of baking soda and onion powder and garlic powder that just seasons the chicken just right. But I think also us Koreans, we also soak our chicken that has bone in it in milk, and then we rinse our chicken.

[Lisa Mullins]

And what difference does that make for Koreans?

[Sarah Ahn]

We can identify this gamey smell that chicken and beef or whatever protein may have. And I know chicken and beef aren't gamey meats, but there's this scent that my mom taught me because I wasn't convinced at first. I was very much convinced by, I guess maybe the American way that we don't have to rinse the chicken, we don't have to do the milk, because so and so says so online. And then my mom did a side by side test and she's like, do you smell that? And I'm like, yes, I do smell that. That's what I mean by what gaming means is what my mom said. And then she showed me hours later when she soaked it in milk and she's like, can you smell it now? And I couldn't smell it. And that's when I learned that I shouldn't question my mom. So it gets rid of that gamey scent, but also makes the chicken very tender.

[Lisa Mullins]

I think your mom is a force. I mean, a loving force, but a force.

[Sarah Ahn]

She is for sure a force and just such a wise person.

[Lisa Mullins]

Yeah. That's Sara Ahn, who, along with her mother, Nam Soon Ahn, is the author of A Korean Mom's kitchen, wisdom and 100 family recipes. So nice to speak with you. Thank you, sir.

[Sarah Ahn]

Thank you, Lisa.

[Andrew Limbong]

And that's it for this week on NPR's Book of the Day. Let us know what you think. You can write to [e-mail] I'm Andrew Limbong. The podcast is produced by Chloe Weiner and edited by Megan Sullivan. Our founding editor is Petra Maher. The show elements for this week were produced and edited by Tyler Bartlam, Sarah Robbins, Elena Burnett, Christopher Intagliotta, Karen Miller Medson, Todd Mundt, Emiko Tamagawa, Julia Corcoran and Kira Wakeem. Yolanda Sanguini is our executive producer. Thanks.

[Elsa Chang]

Foreign.

[Lisa Mullins]

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[Lisa Mullins]

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[Roy Choi]

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