410: Eric Kim & Deuki Hong

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0:31To me, cooking Korean is not about bulgogi, kalbi, and all that. It's about stovetop soups. It's about thinking about Korea as a soup culture. Thinking about Korea as a peninsula surrounded by oceans and seafood being foundational.

0:51This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

0:59On this episode, I'm so happy to join the stage with two of my good friends, Chef Dookie Hong and New York Times columnist and cookbook author Eric Kim. We had such a great conversation about our book, Korea World, a cookbook and cultural study that I wrote with Dookie. This conversation was recorded live at Rizzoli Bookstore and touches on many topics related to modern Korean food in both Korea and the United States. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:35Okay, hi everyone. Welcome to Rizzoli Bookstore. Thank you all for being here. We're very glad to have you all here to celebrate another night of Taste live at Rizzoli. This is recorded live for the podcast, This Is Taste. and we're very delighted to be joined tonight by Dookie Hong and Matt Rodbard to celebrate the launch of their new book, Korea World. Dookie is an executive chef and owner of Sunday Bird in San Francisco and co-author with Matt of the best-selling book, Koreatown. And Matt, of course, is also the founding editor of Taste. And usually he's on stage here as the moderator, but tonight he's the author.

2:09And instead, we're lucky to have Eric Kim, New York Times staff writer and author of the best-selling cookbook Korean American. So they're going to be in conversation for about 45 minutes or so with some time after for audience questions. Let's give a very warm welcome now to Matt and Duki.

2:30Thank you guys so much for coming. So you know what's really interesting is that Matt has interviewed me four or five times and I listen to the Taste podcast almost like every day, if not like every week. And so I just realized right now that I'm the host, and that's very nerve-wracking. You're so kind. And it is recorded. Yeah, forever. Make sure you say only PC things. Okay, just kidding. So we're going to get started. Thank you both so much for being here. Congratulations, by the way. This is their release date, which means that you've done a thousand things already, right? you how do you feel i mean what do you how do you i feel like i woke up at 4 30 at a fire alarm at my house so that was something but but yeah it's been a good day how's your morning oh sorry noob mike um uh yeah it was a great day we did a podcast thing so i had like a stomach thing in the morning oh that's right we got to talk about that because you know let's not talk about and you were like feeling it was tough yeah i like missed the breakfast i was like i'll catch you when I catch you guys.

3:38But this is great. I'm ready to go. Stomach settled. We get to finally talk about this book that you've been working on for years. Yeah. You know, like one kind of question that I wanted to start with was when you're someone who writes about Korean food or someone finds out you're Korean, a long time ago, the first thing they would say is, oh, I love kimchi. That was like something they would say. I What do people say now? Or another way of asking this question is, what was a moment when you realized, wow, Korean food is popping? Wow. Hi, Mom. Oh, yeah, the mom's. Mom Bart's here. Guys, Mom Bart here.

4:21Right on time. Mom Bart's here. Tamar's here. That's a flat here, Mom. So you want to answer that first, I feel. The question. Yeah, like, was there a moment when you kind of realized, oh, wow, Korean food is popping? I mean, I'm the writer on the project. Obviously, Duke and I have known each other for 13 years. And, you know, when we were in a bookstore, so I'll tell this brief story. We tried to sell the book, and Angela's here, our agent. It wasn't received that well. We had a lot of rejection. So, I mean, it wasn't popping in 2013, at least in the terms of the publisher. But we had, thankfully, you know, Francis Lamb, Doris Cooper at Clarkson Potter saw it.

5:03so i think it took a little while for us to realize that our first book koreatown was being embraced and that korean food was being thought about beyond you know the taco yeah barbecue became a bestseller by the way and publishing is always a couple years behind but it takes the authors to write the book yeah on the things for it to become something right yeah we're by no means responsible for this whole career i mean we'll take some of no um it wasn't like 10 years i mean everyone's old enough like for 10 years ago it was a very different conversation around korean food korean culture like now like the most show on most viewed show on netflix is is a korean show korean drama i think who is up there or who's up there like you know this is like but no one's like oh my gosh it's like maybe there is but i think it's becoming more and more kind of normalized But yeah, when we, I mean, you know, the behind the scenes, I just came on and took all the credit.

6:04But like, and Angela, you know, definitely the real background of like how not well received it was. So yeah, I'm glad that we're, we get to tell a story again 10 years later with a very, very different environment. I'm a very nostalgic person and I love indulging. So let's, let's go back 10 years. Tell us about your, your relationship, the two of you. How did you start working together? It's a great question. I mean, we were together on a guidebook that the Korean government sponsored. It was kind of like Michelin Guide or we were inspectors. It was like a version. Yeah, you're right. Come correct.

6:40It was not Michelin Guide. It was a very small project. But we both were going on anonymously to restaurants and reviewing them. And I was a writer and we had judges. Dookie was one of them. And like Dookie and I just connected. You were 22 at the time. And like I just – we spoke the same language. We both loved food. It wasn't just Korean food. It was all sorts of food. and we both loved restaurants we both loved new york so we kind of bonded over this idea that korean food is more um than what's being said and we just decided like at that moment we're gonna sell a book yeah it's um so and i say this every single time like i and i do take most of the credit which is great but the idea and the brainchild of it like he reached out to me saying hey i have this whole idea so koreatown which is the the book before i'm trying not to call it like a prequel sequel thing because you said not to but let's talk about that it's a book one um it's his idea and he's the one that was like hey let's try to write this book um and i was like okay don't really know i'm not really mastermind of anything yeah you're you're a chef and i'm a writer so my job is to like mastermind these type of things and we we just we developed the recipes in your illegal apartment you know on 35th street i'm like going so deep yeah it's at home sorry yeah no heat there was zero heat in that apartment so that's that's interesting so you're saying it's kind of like um i always use the explanation i always use the metaphor of michelle branch and jessica harpe or like john lennon and paul mccartney like one person does the lyrics one person does music what'd you say yeah i like that it's really smart it's really smart eric i think that's um i feel like i'm definitely the lyrics in a way this metaphor works it really works and The music is the food, right?

8:25Agree. What do you think, Dookie? No, Matt, it makes it really easy. So for me, as we all... Hey, Monica, hey. Sorry, I'm like seeing old friends. I'm very not... I'm very like... It works well in a kitchen. It works horribly everywhere else. And so I just talk and I cook. And Matt's like, okay. Okay, he'll ask me questions. And then a book comes out. And that's great. That's a good partnership. Yeah, I'm very not... It's like that. It really is. Well, we took it on the road. and we'll get to this book, the new one. We took it on the road a little bit more. Yeah. Right. Well, okay. So that's the thing that I wanted to ask.

8:59You guys really don't want to call Koreatown the prequel or you don't want to call Korea World the sequel. Why? And I guess I wanted to hear about what took you eight years to follow up to your smash debut hit, Koreatown. Thank you, Eric. I mean, it's a really good question. And, you know, the fact of the matter is we put a lot of recipes in the first book that were like the canon. Tangs, chigae, we put a lot of namoos and kimchis in the front of the book. We have a lot of recipes that we feel that like gamja tang, like lots of recipes that are like going to be in like the encyclopedia Wikipedia for Korean food.

9:37And we did that intentionally because, again, it was like one of the first Korean American books. So we needed to do a book that wasn't that. We didn't want to repeat any recipes. So when you look at the book, there are no repeats, maybe a stock or two. So we wanted to figure out what's the story? What's there? Journalism and all that. What's there? And it became clear while we were writing it that it was about modern Korean food. It was about modern Seoul and all around Korea, Ganwondo, Jelado, all around Jeju. you, but also what's happening in Korea towns on the West Coast here in New York. So it was all about modernity, about the zeitgeist.

10:23And so that was kind of our guiding light. And to that point, it's not really a sequel because it's new. It's all new. It's about now. Yeah. Yeah. Flipping through this is incredible because you get to the section that's about the United States. and then as you flip to each kind of city, D.C., New York, whatever, you see the profiles of different chefs who are doing prominent things in those cities. And I'm like, oh, yeah, that is that person in that city. Peter Cho in Portland or Oregon, for instance. I think that's one thing that's really lovely about this book. There's so much reporting in it.

11:01I think one thing that I wanted to ask you was, you know when you're tackling a book what was there a moment where you wanted to make sure it wasn't encyclopedic like what what what were your boundaries for this book because Korea World is obviously a very big title and um I'd love to know I'd love for you to talk about the the boundaries of this project because I really the reading experience is really lovely it makes you feel like you get a taste but I want to know I'll start and you do keep filling I think Like, you know, we didn't want it to be a Wikipedia. We needed it to have people. And that was essential to our process was who are the people that we want to talk with?

11:45And what are their stories? So is it Jay Lee talking about sobriety in New York City? Is it Susan Kim talking about Doshi? Eunjo talking about kimbap and like the interesting evolution of kimbap in America. Is it like talking to Peter about what's cool in Portland, which was a city we decided to really focus on? Portland and Washington, D.C. were two cities we didn't really cover in the first book. So we end up going there and meeting all these characters in all of these cities, Angel Barreto and Danny Lee, for example, in D.C., and Peter Cho, as mentioned, and Han from Kim Jong-Gilin, which is an amazing food truck.

12:22And it has the best name, too, Kim Jong-Gilin. You've got to go there. It's so good. and so we made these choices along the way when you're reporting as you know Eric you know through your work of the times you have to make pivots you have to change and like we decided pretty quickly that okay Portland has a great story let's focus there I think how the book was well how the book was shot was something that was I think I learned a lot too in terms of so Alex Lau is our photographer and as you guys some of you guys have the book some of you guys don't have the book please get the book and change that this is the whole point we're here um but if you guys skim through the book you'll see the first thing even my mom two days ago when i presented the book she's not like she can't read any words in that book like but the first thing that she said was like wow this photography is like insane and i would agree um yeah the photography is like fully carries thank you alex lao for carrying the book the writing is world class and the recipes are their recipes are pretty great they're not just there the recipes are pretty great too and yeah and and it was shot in a very and i think koreatown we've maybe developed this style unintentionally intentionally that it's not studio shot um and matt was very and he's very like don't call it a sequel like no studio shoots so like we just like go on that kind of that mission and alex la was the perfect uh person to just execute that and and not only execute but take it to another level so did you want to add something man you know i i think the studio photography is just not for us yeah and i think the documentary approach with photography makes this book come alive um and i feel uh we put in the time required for this and we were really fortunate to be able to get to korea um in 2021 in 2022 under some pretty tough conditions with covid and we're able to shoot uh you know at like temples we were able to shoot in restaurants and travel the country.

14:15So the first two thirds of the book is really a road story. And to me, Alex being there on our side, having no studio shoots really made it come alive. Yeah, I feel like that's definitely a key feature of the book. Not just visually, but the documentary style approach to the content. I think when people read our work at the New York Times, for instance, I think, I don't know if people understand that we're reporting on the world and we're reporting on what we see out there. It's not, sometimes we have these ideas about preconceptions, but ultimately the reporting is what's going to lead to the content.

14:54And so what's really fascinating for me was flipping through this book, knowing your first book and having been very much inspired by it, you know, for my own, I love the dishes that are represented because they're kind of like the ones that everyone does love. they're like really delicious but they're at the edges they're not just dokboki they're like rose dokboki or they're not i don't know um i think one thing i just really wanted to ask you you both is what's like a an esoteric korean dish that you wish more people knew about and when i say esoteric i mean esoteric to like non-koreans like basically not um i don't know what's a popular korean dish that people mean bulgogi yeah like not bulgogi yeah what's a not bulgogi for you guys what comes to your mind you wish everyone would know about so like i don't get prepped like i'm really bad when i know the questions and so these are the moments where i was like man i wish i knew the question yeah you know this is true but 90 of it i like i'm like don't tell me the questions um there's so many to be honest there's for me i'm gonna go familiar unfamiliar because it was a learning experience for me as a chef um and she's looking at me right now but it was the this lady's looking at me she's yeah she's just there and we got to get her the book she that was a shot at 4 30 4 30 in the morning i mean we can send it to the temple is shot at on location in in gaomundo yeah and she's the temple she's not a monk but she serves the monks and she's the chef there and it really was this um vegan kimchi it's like so yeah kind of just to say it's vegan kimchi is like not enough it was like a totally different experience how they you know for them it's not parameters like hey you can't use not only just no meat and no um you know animal byproducts it's like no garlic no onion like anything that will kind of excite you in a way the spirit and and like these very aromatic um you know uh ginger ginger can they use maybe ginger they can use but people that know more yeah for the monks ginger is kind of a little off limits but you know they so even with those limitations it didn't feel very limiting and we do have some recipes in the book that kind of uh by no means at that level but we pay homage to that and um just like a new arsenal unlocked yeah it's it's i love i love they bring up temple and i think big part of temple cuisine that we want to cover is to think of it outside of the netflix documentary that made temple cuisine in korea so popular from chef's table and we love jungkwan and like she's an interesting character, but we really thought that temple food needed to be represented beyond one person, beyond very fine dining.

17:37And like this is like work a day, like for the monks. My answer is actually is maisho, maisho syrup. And like the fact that, you know, a lot of Korean home cooking in traditional books is like honey or rice syrup or sugar, simple syrup as a sweetener. And I think those are all terrific. We have some really, and this was Duki from the start, was really adamant to get Meshul and also like strawberry syrups. And like using, like Meshul is a plum, and it is like a very bright acidic fruit that can be made into a syrup very easily. And you use it in a lot of different ways. You use it in meat marinades.

18:16You use it in some tangs even. You use it in kind of like anywhere you want sweetness. And to me, that's why Korean home cooking is so good. And like when you're lucky enough to have a friend or a partner who is Korean or loves Korean cooking, you you have the meal, you sit down and you're like, wow, this is the best Korean food. I mean, literally, it happens every time. I'm like, it's just somehow it's better, you know. They have a recipe for chong and it's kind of like a golden ratio and you can use whatever fruit you want. And you know, what's interesting is when I was writing my book, that's the kind of main thing that I realized about my mother's kitchen and contemporary home cooks, Korean home cooks, which is they rely on these syrups that they make themselves usually to sweeten their food and not sugar.

19:03Is that, I mean, is that something you guys saw out there? Yeah, not only, I mean, it's a very Korean thing. Like my mom, she's not like, I mean, she is healthy. She's not here, which is good. But she's alive. She's alive. She's not like not not here. She's just not present here. I just saw her. Yeah, she doesn't like very rarely in a Korean recipe where like, hey, put a cup of sugar in there. It's they try to extract sweetness from other fruit is a good example. So I don't know. I mean, Koreans like sugar, but there's this aversion to like, hey, let's use like pure white sugar. so a lot of that comes from vinegars as well so acid sweetness i saw it the most actually in la at soban in a restaurant called soban yeah and this lady is a mat like her bar that like they took over this bar thing and there's no alcohol drink it's just all tongues and vinegars and like oh that one's like older than you and like a lot of that stuff so and that's what she cooks from that's why soban to me is like so and ganwondo you weren't there but i went with alex and nadia and we went to Ganwondo and it was the same story.

20:05We found an older woman who lived in the country is gorgeous in the state park and she had all these chungs just sitting there and herbs. If you can find someone selling you chungs out of literally Gatorade bottles. It was awesome. It was like, this is what I want. That was one thing that I was really struck by, which is the use of these essential ingredients, chungs, chungs, and the short ingredient list. So, you know, especially in the temple food section, I noticed it especially. But I guess I just wanted to ask you guys about this. Was there something, was it the food editor in you that, you know, pared down the ingredient lists or was it just the reporting out there?

20:46You were watching people cook and it turns out that the most delicious food in the world just happens to be like seven ingredients. Is that true? It's with our first book. I think it's why it was successful in some ways and has longevity. I think this cooking is very, it can be very simple. obviously with time you know if you're doing solan tang it's a long long long process but ultimately like tang chigae uh it's on the stove jim even is on the stovetop and you know there's a foundational like five to eight ingredients you did so well in your book too in korean american if you look at it there aren't many two or three page recipes and like that's really it is the food editor in me and francis who edited it but also i just think it's just the way that korean food is made it's a lot of knife cuts yeah you kind of make up for the the lack of ingredients with all the all the cuts and that's the one thing about korean food you better you're going to become a better like knife knife smen that's so true i like the way you said that it's um korean food and korean cooking is simple but the ingredients are complex i would say like okay so speaking of ingredients and changs um how this is the whole purpose of this talk it's a summit for tenjang how do we make tenjang you know as as as popular as culture i've tried and it just doesn't happen i don't know why and um there's this tenjang jjigae in the book that um you developed and there's like a note in there about how he changes his tenjang jjigae every two years and it's kind of true like um when you're when you're a korean cook you kind of like that's such an essential stew that the way you make it is going to change with you can you can we talk about tenjang and i want to hear about the tenjang jiga too but sorry i always insert like a thousand questions oh yeah um tenjang section of the talk yes tenjang like which is a soybean yeah it's the brown if you're in hmart there's a green samjian there's a red it's gojujang and tenjang's the brown and let's make this we're on a we're like press conference for tenjang it's a fermented so i'll just do a quick so it's all soybeans right so if you just leave it as is without any addition of like dried chilies that becomes gochujang right the the meju and all that that's tenjang right and then the byproduct of that is ganjang which is soy sauce so that's your mother sauce as well and you learn something if you take nothing from this book it's all soybeans right tenjang so I don't have that like why isn't tenjang it's kind of like ketchup and mustard like if you don't like mustard you don't like mustard you know and I no not the right analogy that was really good actually I like that I'm not like love mustard you know I think for me with the tenjakjigae, I think there's so many ways to have tenjakjigae.

23:23Like, Chef Jihyun in Heirloom BBQ was probably the most... Shout out to Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta. Atlanta. A lot of... No. Okay. New York all the way. Okay. She uses it in like a brisket rub. So that's the... And it makes sense, right? Because it's just umami and there's earthiness and it fits well with like the smoke. So I would like instead of the sure the popularity um just like the utilization of it even with guccijang like it's not just a dipping or it's not just like uh a marinade of sorts you can use it in a lot of different ways that would make me more happier than um everyone going to teen tenjang you know right it's a base for cooking right right right i guess that's why i have such this chip on my shoulder about tenjang because it's it's it's it's a more commonly i don't know if would agree with this, but I feel like it's a more commonly used ingredient in the day-to-day, but Koji Zhang is the one that gets all the stars.

24:21And my friend, Eric Kim, my friend, you have changed Tenjun markets. You've moved markets with some of your articles in your Times. Why is your thing with Tenjun? You've featured in the paper of record, and I think many in this room have made, I would say, some pastries with Tenjun that you've developed. You've developed, I would believe, some Italian-ish recipes with Tenjun yourself. You are Mr. Tenjun. Why are you on this hill? Why are you not on this hill, my friend? You are on this hill, my friend. Let me explain myself. What I'm saying is, okay, actually, we just, this is not an ad for New York Times Cooking, but on New York Times Cooking, you can refine the results finally for each author page.

25:02And I was like looking at mine, and I did one of the most popular recipes, and like the top five are all Ko Zhijun recipes. And I was like, whoa. And I always kind of knew that. But so, and what happened, I'm not saying I did this, but, you know, after around 2020, Kojang sales went up. It, like, spiked. We hate that. That's not allowed. But the same has not happened for Tenjang. And I have all these theories about it. But anyway, every time I see Tenjang in your book, especially, there's a mention of a lamb chop that's been marinated in Tenjang and grilled. And that sounds so good to me. But anyway, I think it's because it's brown.

25:46It has a lack of a color. It definitely needs some PR with that. It needs PR. But ultimately, my answer would be Tenjun is like better miso. And I'm not trying to make this a political conversation. But to me, and I've been written about Tenjun production in farms, the complexity and the aging of it is key. It's like 24 months. It's like 36 months. It's like, unfortunately, the age statements don't really get told about. It's like talked about. It's always the senpio stuff. So you actually have really good old tenjun that can be used in a different way, like with samjian, for example. We love miso, by the way.

26:27Miso is great. Awesome. Wow. Thank you for covering. Yeah. Well, that's what's confusing to me. Miso is like super popular. So like what's happening with tenjun? We love miso. Oh, this got nerdy. Anyway, okay. This got nerdy. We'll move on to, okay, I want to ask this question because I think you sort of address it through the book in a very thoughtful way through all this reporting, through all these recipes, through all of the presentation of what Korean food is now. But I want to ask you guys, each of you to answer separately, but like, what does it mean to cook Korean today? You know what?

27:04For me, it means to actually think beyond barbecue. To me, cooking Korean is not about bulgogi, kalbi, and all that. It's about stovetop soups, tang, tang, chigae.

27:33this is not new we like literally said this in 2016 we put out our first book but to me i still come back to that because i still see korean food being put into a box that is barbecue which is delicious food but we really i really think cooking korean is about stovetop soups yeah korean cooking today and we had a really good conversation about it friday on a podcast it was great i think it's going more towards i mean dishes are great but i think we're going beyond the korean food and like great uh it's now hopefully going and continue going to like the regional like so we have cheju specific recipes we have recipes from gwangju um so it's kind of like how italian food like there's like sicilian food there's northern italian so it's all and there's specific hopefully we get to that conversation where it's like when we say cheju we are talking about like tangerines acid uh like the black pig so hopefully we're getting into like more of the that part of the conversation and hopefully i'm saying hopefully a lot so yeah no it's it's the hope is that folks will actually see korea as like not a monolith or not a place for one thing yeah right there does seem to be this wanting to define it now you know in the way that like other cuisines have done you know it's the the marketing it's really happening now i feel like Oh, yeah.

28:56I mean, I would say this book is a great example of marketing, but also I would say Heliu, the Korean wave is a part of this conversation. Seeing Parasite win an Oscar, seeing Professor Wu and all the shows on Netflix, seeing all the K-pop kids on the streets in New York playing K-pop. And also, of course, the food. If it all gets wrapped up in this, and this is a country of 50 million people that are punching well above the weight of a country and just the soft power coming out of Korea and the influence is remarkable. That's why as a writer and obviously a non-Korean person, I am just drawn to the story and the narrative.

29:34It's so exciting. It's the story of our lifetime as food writers, I believe. Yeah, so true. I mean, so let's go here. How are you? I think I don't know if you guys feel this way but as someone who grew up with Korean food and it wasn't like this when I was a baby at least but it has been really building up steam in the last 10 years I guess where do you see Korea's explosive cultural kind of impact where do you see it going from here whether it's food or otherwise I feel like like when is it going to stop it not stop but like you know no I don't think it'll stop I think you have to like admit that there will be other cultures that become more focused on I think like for example like Thai cuisine is really going to have a moment in New York City in the next five years it's like undeniable like Thai cuisine is absolutely on fire it is amazing um that doesn't mean Korean food is going to end so that's just like the preface as a food writer I get a look at like all this whole story, right?

30:38But I mean, for me, it's like thinking about downtown Los Angeles where there's a restaurant called Prilla, there's a restaurant called Yongban, there's a restaurant called Baru. Like three of the city's most influential restaurants are not in K-Town on Olympic Boulevard and 6th Street, but in downtown LA. So I think the future of Korean cuisine in America is like moving out of Koreatown, going down to the East Village where Ariari is amazing restaurant. I really love Ariari or going to the back of Food Gallery 32 and going to Nuna Noodle, which is an absolute amazing restaurant right here. We've got Stella here in the back in our book.

31:13And I saw you there and I was like, but this is a great example of what's happening is Korean food is being done in many different ways. It's not just in restaurants. It's at stalls. It's out of the downtown Korea towns. Yeah. I think, so I'm not really sure. My short answer is I don't know where it's going. And if you asked me 10 years ago, hey do you think you know a korean movie is going to win an oscar no absolutely not um i think what we're certain of is what we're not and what korean food or the culture is and i don't believe it's a fad is it safe to say 10 years in there to angela i remember when i'm sure and you were telling me like a lot of people didn't pick it up and angela you could probably confirm is that people just thought it was a fad like hey it's gonna it's gonna go away like we're not trying to commit into this literally a rejection letter from a publisher that publishes major books nice found here like korean food is a fad not that we're bitter because i don't want to ever for real it's not a little bitter maddie i know and it's bad and it's like to answer the question it's like that there's that was ignorance like it's not you can't call culture a fad that's like ridiculous but back in 2013 that was the way i think some editors were thinking of it and we've seen a great reckoning in food writing where like culture isn't fad and like that's i think we can confidently say that we're it's not hopefully and it's it's pretty confirmed uh with our first book and with career world like we pretty much we just documented a culture sure and arts uh but also a culinary revolution and we say it's like one of our first pages and it kind of sets you up for like hey this is we're just documenting this there's nothing that we've done or or doing anything differently it's happening naturally and it's not you know it's good it's not that intentional Thanks, guys.

32:56We're going to go to audience questions in a bit. But I do first want to say that if you're interested in this topic, this touches like Matt has interviewed many people on this podcast. So if you go to this is taste podcast, you can hear like many other conversations that touch on this at the edges. And so you get to interview, you get to listen to the people in this book speak about all this. um i kind of want to go here uh the food that really excites me in this book is the spaghetti spaghetti al vangole i'm kind of like looking at it like oh why is this here and then the first line is like yeah you're probably wondering why is this here um and and you know they they do you guys want to explain that one real quick you want to explain yeah i think so i mean i think that we came across this this this really confident trend in korea which was italian cuisine it was happening Like there was definitely a lot of pasta happening and some of it good and some of it not so good.

33:55But honestly, we came across Vanglai because we obviously love that TV show that had that great Vanglai scene. Just kidding. I don't know if you're right. That's a joke. We wanted to feature Vanglai because clams, herbs, noodles, garlic, and oil, it all like fit into the larder of Korea. There was like nothing there that was not part of Korea. but it was somehow working really well. Wheat noodles, part of Korea, like clams everywhere in Korea. So it like felt like appropriate to put a vanglais recipe in. We found it at a food hall in Songsu, Apujang. So like a pretty high-end food hall, we found it there.

34:38Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, and it just made sense. Did that one also have – so in the book it has soju and gochugaru. I was like so excited to make it. Is that what you tasted? I wasn't there. Yeah, we kind of like, we got together later because you were not in that report. I think Maddie's approach to it, at least in this restaurant, because I saw it too. I was like, okay. It's like with Tokyo and pizza, right? They make good pizza. I don't care what y 'all say about it. It's some damn good pizza. And they figured it out, whatever, with the water or the dough. And I think Koreans are taking that approach.