Rice Cuisine and Cultural Practice in Contemporary Korean Dietary Life

This paper analyzes the contents, forms, and consumption patterns of rice dishes in order to understand underlying meanings of diversification and invention of dishes as cultural commodities in the globalizing food market. The recent renaissance of culinary culture in Korea reveals many interesting cases for anthropological interpretation. Along with globalization of dietary life, people invent new items of rice cuisine and (re)produce new perspectives on the positive qualities of national foods in what can be seen as an expression of cultural nationalism. However, through careful examination of rice cuisine in Korea and comparison with other Asian countries, this paper interprets the phenomena as a cultural practice of the philosophy of sinto buri ("body and earth are one") to postmodern life.