From the pages of our program: Aubergine Playwright Julia Cho shares a story about food and the memory of her late father in this essay which first appeared at Playwrights Horizons.
There are two dishes, above all, that I associate with my father. The first is ramen. And by “ramen” I mean instant ramen, not the artisanal, simmered-for-40-hours kind of Japanese ramen so popular right now. The latter is undoubtedly more delicious but was entirely unavailable to me in my youth. What we had was the instant kind, in colorful packs, and we bought it by the box. It is hard to overstate the resonance this kind of ramen holds not just for me, but for many Korean Americans. We grew up eating it in all its umami glory, usually with an egg cracked straight into it while boiling.
My mother cooked almost all of our meals from scratch — a heroic endeavor I utterly failed to appreciate or measure up to — so ramen was never, say, dinner. Ramen was something eaten in the off hours, late at night. I’d come downstairs looking for a snack to find my father standing over the stove with the small, steel pot whose entrance into our family predated mine and whose sole purpose, it seemed, was to make ramen. He’d see me and wordlessly add another block of noodles and packet of seasonings to the pot. There was something calm and contented about those late night meals. My memory is tricky — as tricky as that of my characters. So I don’t know if there’s a certain wish fulfillment going on. But I’d like to think we had some good meals together in the quiet of our house, slurping soup together late into the night.
“I eat ramen, now sharing it with my own children, who lap it up with an almost primal instinct as I have yet to find a child who doesn’t like noodles...”
But ramen was something my father ate at home because it was quick, easy, and cheap. It was not his favorite food. For that, we would have to go out to eat and the only kind of food we really went out for was Chinese food. At least, growing up, that’s what I thought it was. We went to restaurants with words like “Peking” or “Dragon” in the title and they often had paper placemats printed with the Chinese Zodiac, so you can understand why I assumed what we were eating was Chinese. But what my parents actually went out for was not Chinese food — Mandarin, say, or Szechuan. What they went out for was Korean Chinese food.
This is a terribly reductive food history, but what I understand is that the Chinese went to Japan and opened restaurants, which led to ramen. But the Chinese also went to Korea and opened restaurants, which led to dishes such as jajangmyun and my father’s hands-down favorite dish: jjamppong. It is a red and fiery seafood soup, with thick udon-like noodles and a briny, spicy broth. We kids would order the sweeter, milder jajangmyun and my father would order his jjamppong and all of us were happy and sated.
I bring up these two dishes because when someone dies, one of the harder aspects is that you no longer get to eat with them. There are some religions that construct altars for their dead and leave food for them to have in the afterlife. I know one friend who put a Pepsi and a donut on the altar for his grandmother because those were her favorite foods. For my father, I would put ramen and jjamppong. But being Christian, we have no altars. So instead, I eat ramen, now sharing it with my own children, who lap it up with an almost primal instinct as I have yet to find a child who doesn’t like noodles. And should I be so lucky to be in LA’s Koreatown, I go to Young King and order their jjamppong. I think of my father — this man who ate out so rarely, who gave himself so few material luxuries that when he died, he left almost nothing to inherit. He grew up in a time and place where there were no cameras; of his early life, or even his life as a young man, I know virtually nil. But I know what he ate; I know what foods he liked. And so it is a kind of communion: I eat these things in remembrance of him.
Read the article (Korean Translation)
우리 아버지를 생각할때 두가지의 음식이 떠올라요. 첫번째는 라면이에요. 물론 요즘 유행하는 일본 라면 말고, 우리 한국라면이죠. 슈퍼가서 살수있는, 박스안에 밝은 포장지로 쌓인 라면. 한국사람들한테는, 특히 재미교포들한테는 깊이 와닿는 음식이죠. 보글보글 라면을 끓이면서 계란하나 타악 넣은 그 라면 맛, 한국사람이면누구나 그맛이 뭔지알죠.
우리어머니는 우리 가족음식을 거의 다 직접 손으로 요리하셨어요 - 제가 어렸을때는 그 의미가뭔지도 모르고 지금은 따라할수없는 영웅적인 노력이죠 - 그래서 라면은 절대 저녁식사가 아니었죠. 라면은 늦은 밤에 끓여먹는 음식이었어요. 가끔 저는 간식찾아 아랫층으로 내려오면 저보다 먼저 우리가족에 속해 있었던 오르지 라면만드는 이유로 존재한듯한 그 쇠 냄비 위에서, 아버지가 라면 끓이시는 모습을 발견하곤했죠. 제가 내려오는걸 보시고 말없이 면 하나더 그리고 양념 한 팩 더 냄비에 넣으셨죠. 그 늦은 밤들이 어떤면에서는 되게 조용하고 만족스러웠었어요.제 연극 캐릭터들처럼 저도 기억이 가물가물해요. 그래서 제 바램대로 기억하는건지도 모르겠어요. 근데 저는 그 늦은 밤에 라면국물을 시원하게 마셨던 그 시간들이 좋은 추억이라고 생각하고싶어요.
그렇지만 우리 아버지한테 라면은 집에서, 쉽고, 빠르고, 싸게 해드실수있는 음식이었어요. 아버지가 제일 좋아하시는 음식이 아니었죠. 제일 좋아하시는 음식을 먹을려면 외식을 해야했어요. 우리 가족이 외식했다 하면 항상 중국음식점 이였어요. 적어도, 제가 아는 중국음식은 그곳에서 먹는 음식이었죠. 우리가 가는 식당들은 주로 이름에 '페킹' (Peking) 아님 '드래곤' (Dragon) 같은 단어들이 들어갔고, 식탁위에는 중국 띠달력이 적혀있는 종이들이 올려있는걸 보니, 어린나이엔 그곳들을 진짜 중국식당이라고 생각했었죠. 우리 가족은 진정한 중국음식이 아닌 한국 중국음식을 찾았던거죠.
아주 기본적인 음식의 역사지만, 제가 알기로는 중국사람들이 일본가서는 요릿집을 열고 그게 일본 라면이되었고, 또한 중국사람들이 한국에 가서 요릿집을 열고난후에는 짜장면이랑 짬뽕이 만들어졌었죠. 그 중에 우리 아버지는 빨갛고 매운 짬뽕을 굉장히 좋아하셨어요. 우리 애들은 단맛이 나는 짜장면을 주문하고, 아버지는 짬뽕을 시키시고, 우리 모두 배부르고 행복한 시간들이었죠.
제가 이 두가지 음식이 떠오르는 이유는 그런것같에요. 누군가가 돌아가실때에는 다른것들 중에 제일 어려운것이 그분이랑 더이상 같이 식사를 못한다는것이죠. 어떤 종교에서는 제단을 만들고 다음생에 가져갈 음식을 내놓죠. 제가 아는 한 친구는 할머니제단에다가 펩시콜라랑 도넛을 남겼었어요. 친구할머니가 제일좋아하시는 음식들 이었으니까요. 저는 아버지에게 라면이랑 짬뽕을 올렸을텐데. 그러나 우리는 기독교이기때문에 제단이없어요. 그래서 저는 대신에 제 자식들이랑 같이 라면을 끓여먹어요. 녀석들은 원초적 본능인것 처럼 아주 싹싹 긁어먹죠. 여태까지 저는 라면을 안좋아하는 아이를 본적이없으니까요. 그리고 운좋게도 저는 LA 코리아타운 근처에 살고있어서 영킹이라는 음식점을 가서 짬뽕을 주문하곤하죠. 그럴때마다 아버지를 생각해요 - 너무나도 드물게 외식하셨던, 자기를 위해서는 거의 아무것도 안 하셔서 우리에게 남긴게 거의 없으셨던 우리 아버지. 자라시면서 카메라가 없는 시절이었기에, 아버지의 어린 시절, 젊은 시절에대해도 저는 거의 모릅니다. 그렇지만, 아버지가 뭘 드셨는지,어떤음식을 좋아하셨는지는 알아요. 그래서 이 두가지 음식이 아버지하고의 하나의 친교법이죠. 이 음식들을 아버지를 기억하면서 먹습니다.
Reprinted with permission from Playwrights Horizons, New York
