Recreating Korean Fare At Home

Molinaro started cooking much more in 2016 when she adopted a plant-based diet and found it hard to find satisfying takeout options.

Korean barbecue and beef bulgogi may be some of the cuisine's best-known dishes in the U.S., But there's a lot more to Korean food than meat.

There are a lot of cultures

throughout the world that did have to survive without meat and have done a pretty remarkable job of doing just that.

And Korea is no exception to that rule.

Meat eating was something that's very new advent to Korean cuisine.

And, you know, even in my own household, we weren't rich by any means.

Therefore, we only went to Korean barbecue on very special occasions like high school graduation, you know, or a birthday

party or something like that.

Molinaro grew up in the U.S., but both of her parents were born in what is now North Korea.

Food scarcity shaped their early lives, and meat wasn't an everyday staple.

Grains and vegetables were often foods families could stretch much further.

My parents grew up,

you know, at a time in Korea's history that was very, very desperate.

They were torn apart by war.

And there was a great deal of poverty and hunger, quite literal hunger.

And that was certainly so much a part of my parents' childhood.

I don't think it was until they were probably in their 30s where they had anything that resembles food security.

Prior to that, every single day was sort of a struggle to make sure that they could survive with the food that they had.

So I don't think that's atypical of many people's experience of food in Korea.

So food first.

before anything in their mind is about survival.

Food first is functional.

It's about ensuring that there are enough calories to eat to make it to the next day.

I don't think that that experience can ever be erased from my parents' bones.