Taeyeon Song (she/her) is the Community and Engagement Events Intern working under the supervision of Dr. Kevin Leomo. She has just finished her second year of a Doctor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and likes instant ramyun, Stephen Sondheim, and getting angry about colonialism.
The Korean phrase 어머니손맛, or ‘the taste of mother’s hands,’ is somewhat untranslatable. And because it is an expression that is so inherently Korean, perhaps that is the way that it should be. Although I have heard 어머니손맛 translated as ‘comfort food,’ ‘home cooking,’ or ‘homemade,’ it is perhaps impossible to fully understand 어머니손맛 if one is not from within the Korean community.
어머니손맛 is the taste of love. 어머니손맛 is the taste of home (wherever home may be, as the Korean experience is inseparable from migration and displacement). 어머니손맛 is a deep and unmissable taste that is found in Korean home cooking that speaks to the resilience of the Korean people that has kept our truths and traditions alive despite centuries of war, occupation, and colonisation.
And now, as Korea a new wave of such colonisation through the popularisation of Korean culture and consequently, the narrative our culture being stolen and controlled by the white gaze and Western consumerism, Korean people such as myself are seeking ways to not only tell our truth, but to do so without pandering or speaking towards whiteness. We are always toeing a fine line, as although we take pride in who we are and the peninsula that we come from, at the same time we do not owe the global community access to our living memories our the intergenerational sensory experiences.
On 2nd September, Thinking Culture had the honour of hosting a kimchi workshop with Eddie Kim, owner and founder of Gomo Kimchi – a Korean deli and poetry library in Glasgow’s Govanhill neighbourhood.
Over the course of two hours, Eddie’s workshop, titled ‘Food, Family, and Home,’ demonstrated how recipes such as kimchi are not just recipes, but rather story, memory, emotion, and identity. As the workshop room was filled with the aroma of 어머니손맛, Eddie shared stories of his gomo – his dear paternal aunt that passed on her kimchi recipe to him. Although there were moments of laughter, such as when Eddie recounted the time he strapped a camera to his head in order to catch his gomo’s quick-fire kimchi making, there were also somber moments that acknowledged how hard it can be to be a diasporic Korean child growing up thousands of miles away from our homeland peninsula. Even the power of 어머니손맛 could not save Eddie from ridicule for his food being “smelly” by his elementary school classmates. Such memories are deeply personal and are undeniably Eddie’s truth and those at the workshop were privileged to hear them. These memories also prompted participants to reflect on – and subsequently, to share – how food, memory, and family are linked to their own lived experiences.
At the end of the evening, workshop participants went home with a jar kimchi. However, one could argue they went home with so much more than that. Within that jar were flavours, aromas, and culinary practices that were thousands of miles and thousands of years in the making. After all, a jar of gomo’s kimchi is both Korean and diasporic Korean, just as Eddie is himself. And perhaps if participants inhaled deeply, within their jar they’d find just a bit of 어머니손맛 too.
Photo credit: Mike Lee
