04-05-2015
The entrance to the pavilion of the Republic of Korea, the seventh to the left, inside Expo. Inspired by traditional Korean jars, it includes a scenic and interactive journey following three concepts: harmony, healing and health. There’s also a restaurant, Hansik, where to taste the delicacies of the national cuisine
We set foot outside our temporary restaurant for the first time to visit Korea’s pavilion, a short walk from our own Identità Expo. There are two main reasons: on the 21st May we will be in Seoul for a Gourmet Festival that is expected to be important (and includes lessons by our Massimo Bottura and Giorgio Nava from Cape Town). And most of all because the construction, not too far from the entrance to the Fair, had captured our notice with its oval and rounded lines, with a very elegant splendour.
We discover the architect was inspired by the Moon Jar, a typical Korean ceramic fully resembling Earth’s satellite, traditionally used to keep fermented food such as jeod-gal (sea fruits in salt) or jang (sauces and pastes). Fermentations, one of the irresistibly increasingly popular leitmotivs in world cuisine, have always characterised Korean cuisine. In the complex and shiny multimedia journey you find in the Corea pavilion (thus called, with no separation between North and South) has dozens and dozens of onggi scattered around, the traditional jars in which fermentation processes traditionally take place, which are here explained for what they are: the breaking down of organic matter with which a process of synthesis of new elements begins.
Inside the restaurant of Korea’s pavilion you can find specialties such as Bibimmyeon & kimchi soban, a slate picture which includes, clockwise, mushroom porridge (in the small glass), salad, kimchi (fermented cabbage), Korean noodles with white kimchi (bibimmyeon) and grilled chicken in soy sauce
Onggi, the multimedia urns inside Korea’s pavilion
Our 2015 World Fair Hotline
by
born in Milan, 1973, freelance journalist, coordinator of Identità Golose World restaurant guidebook since 2007, he is a contributor for several magazines and teaches History of gastronomy and Culinary global trends into universities and institutes. twitter @gabrielezanatt instagram @gabrielezanatt
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