Deva Lee

There was a brief stretch in my first month in Korea when I stopped eating kimchi. I blame culture shock. I had not yet grown my Asian palate and had made the expat’s error of expecting certain colours and shapes to correspond to familiar tastes. I spent far too much time pondering the explosive flavours in my mouth. This was not a side dish to be gastronomically deconstructed – not for beginners anyway. Some of the best advice that fellow expats gave me was: “Just eat it, regularly, and you wi

The best food and travel writers have taught us that regional cuisine is one of the ways in which culture is made manifest. Food is never simply fuel; it’s ritualistic by default. The way that it is prepared, served and eaten can reveal much about a nation’s histories and hierarchies. In South Korea, where collectivism is central to culture, food serves as a means to develop and fortify relationships. 

Asian cuisine, and Korean food in particular, is notoriously difficult to pair with wine. 

There are no casinos in Yeongdeok, but few other places rival the gaudy, hyperreal simulacra of the infamous city in the Nevada desert. 

You don’t often see a nipple out of place in Daegu. What a treat befell me on the first weekend of September, when my nude shoulders were the least of what attracted attention. 

The cicadas are screaming, parasols abound and mould is creeping out of every corner. Summers in my city, Daegu, are oppressive. 

Most days, I eat lunch with a group of Korean women. We don’t share a language but, like most Korean people, we share food. Having only lived in this country for six months, dining with them has been an education to say the least.

Something must be done to stop corrective rape in South Africa.