Korea has a very rich cuisine and food
tradition. The staple food for Koreans is rice,
a particular type of Korean short grain rice,
called sticky rice, because its grains stick together
rather than falling apart. Rice is present in every meal
together with kimchi, a typically Korean food that Koreans
eat all the time with rice, on its own or in soups. Kimchi
is made of cabbage (sometimes other types of vegetables
are used, such as cucumber, radish or bean sprouts, but
cabbage is the most common) fermented with chilly, garlic
and other spices. Kimchi is supposed to be very good for
health because it is rich in vitamins and in Lactobacilli
(with a higher content than in yoghurt).
A common Korean meal is made up by a bowl of rice, a
bowl of soup, several side dishes (called banchan) and
a main dish. The banchan and the main dish can often be
shared by the people eating together, while the bowl of
soup and the bowl of rice are individual.
Korean cuisine involves the use a lot of garlic (a lot
more than in Thai, Italian, Spanish or Greek cuisine),
a lot of red chillies, spices such as ginger, doenjang
(fermented soy paste), soy sauce and gochujang (red chilli
paste). The cooking oil normally used by Koreans is sesame
oil. Korean cuisine includes recipes with meat, fish,
vegetables, noodles and tofu. Altogether Korean cuisine
is very healthy.
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