Italian Food in Korea

Italian Food in Korea

Would you be surprised to hear that Italian food in Korea is not like Italian food in Italy or the USA or any where else I’ve been? The main difference is the seasoning. I ordered spaghetti with bacon and olive “sauce”. “Olive sauce” turned out to be olive oil with a lot of chili peppers and garlic.

One of my students and the interpreter and I went to lunch together to the “Italian Plate” restaurant here in the Gangnam section of Seoul. While the food was nothing close to my idea of Italian, it was quite delicious. The city of Seoul has a restaurant for every 10 people. They have to be good. In spite of being an extreme concentration of humanity; Seoul has abundant, fresh and delicious food. USA agriculture claims to be the most productive in the world. This is accomplished with a sacrifice in taste and healthfulness of the food. If the Korean farmers can feed Seoul’s 20,000,000 people with tasty, healthy food, why can’t the most productive farmers in the world provide that for the people of the USA.