Why do Koreans eat so much garlic?

Because garlic in Korea is not a spice but a basic ingredient. It is in the paste that kimchi is rubbed with, in practically every meat marinade, in soups, stews and dips – and at the barbecue it lies raw on the table in slices. Anyone who eats Korean food therefore does not eat garlic occasionally but at almost every meal. Not because it is especially celebrated, but because it belongs as naturally as the onion in a German kitchen.

Garlic is the base, not the highlight

Korean cooking works with a fixed base chord: soy sauce, sesame oil, scallion, a bit of sweetness, often chili powder or one of the fermented bean pastes – and garlic. This seasoning mix is called 양념 (Yangnyeom), and it is the starting point for a great many dishes.

Garlic is accordingly measured out by the spoonful, not by the clove. In Korean supermarkets, ready-chopped garlic (다진 마늘, Dajin Maneul) stands in tubs in the chilled section, because many households need it in quantity. A recipe that calls for two tablespoons of it is completely unremarkable there.

The bear in the cave – and why the story has a catch

The best-known Korean garlic story is the founding myth around 단군 (Dangun), handed down in the collection 삼국유사 (Samguk Yusa) from the 13th century. A bear and a tiger ask the son of heaven 환웅 (Hwanung) if they may become human. He sends them into a cave, away from the sunlight, with nothing to eat but mugwort and garlic.

The tiger cannot stand it and leaves. The bear stays, becomes a woman, and in the tradition her son Dangun counts as the founder of the first Korean kingdom, Gojoseon. A people that emerges from a garlic diet – you could hardly tell it more nicely.

Only the garlic part is anything but certain. The original text has a character that was later read as garlic as a matter of course, but which can more generally denote a leek plant. Many experts consider it unlikely that the garlic common today was already widespread in Korea at that time, and suspect a native wild leek behind it instead, such as 달래 (Dallae) or 산마늘 (Sanmaneul). So the myth is no proof of how old the Korean love of garlic is. It only shows how deep it sits by now – otherwise nobody would have read the passage that way.

Where it turns up everywhere in everyday life

• Kimchi: Red kimchi is rubbed with a paste of chili powder, garlic, ginger, scallion and usually salted fish or krill. How that works in detail is in our post about fermenting it properly.
• Marinades: 불고기 (Bulgogi) and 갈비 (Galbi) steep in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, sweetness and plenty of chopped garlic.
• Soups and stews: In 삼계탕 (Samgyetang), the soup with the stuffed chicken, whole cloves end up in the bird's belly.
• Dips: 쌈장 (Ssamjang), the dip for lettuce-leaf wraps, consists of soybean paste, chili paste, sesame oil and garlic.
• As a side dish: 마늘장아찌 (Maneul-Jangajji), cloves pickled in soy sauce or vinegar, is a common 반찬 (Banchan).
• Raw with the meat: When you grill 삼겹살 (Samgyeopsal), raw garlic slices are on the table as well. You lay them on the grill plate or eat them raw in a leaf wrap.

But there is also the opposite direction: in Buddhist temple cooking, garlic is one of the five pungent vegetables (오신채, Osinchae) that are not used. Temple kimchi therefore does without it – and tastes correspondingly different. If you want to try a quick kimchi without a long wait, here is a recipe in the Geotjeori style.

Raw, grilled, pickled: three different ingredients

Raw, garlic is sharp and biting. The pungency only comes about when you cut or crush it: enzymes reach precursors in the cell fluid, and the sulfur compounds you smell and taste form out of those. A whole, undamaged clove smells of almost nothing.

Heat switches that off. The slices that cook next to the meat on the plate turn soft, sweetish and nutty – hardly any pungency is left. That is why in Korea you can eat amounts of it that nobody would manage raw.

Pickled garlic is a third thing again: salty-sour, mild, crunchy, a counterweight to fatty meat. And 흑마늘 (Heukmaneul), black garlic, matures over weeks in warmth and humidity until it is dark, soft and sweet-sour, almost like dried fruit. It is often called “fermented”, although no microorganisms are involved, only slow browning reactions.

And the smell?

In Korea it is classed differently than it is with us. In Germany, someone who smells of garlic stands out – it is a deviation. If everyone at the table has eaten the same thing, though, the smell is no longer a marker but background.

That does not mean nobody cares. Brushing your teeth after lunch is common in Korean offices; many people keep a toothbrush and toothpaste in their desk. The difference is rather that the smell of garlic does not count there as a slip-up but as a normal side effect of eating.

If you want to cook it yourself

The best way in is a dish in which garlic plays exactly the role it usually has there: a marinade, a soup, a kimchi paste. The Dosirak cooking box holds the basic ingredients plus a cookbook with 25 recipes – fresh garlic you buy separately, and feel free to buy more than seems right to you on a first reading. And if you first want to see what else there is: this way.