The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has come up with a standard Romanization for the 124 top Korean dishes frequently served both at home and in restaurants.
Explaining Korean dishes in English has always been a bit of challenge for most Korean restaurants, something that international resident has also been well aware of. A standard was required on spellings like "kimchi" or "gimchi", not to mention a more comprehensible description for set courses like "Hanjeongsik" (Korean full meal) which in some places is described simply as "Han fixed meal".
The latest official Romanizations of Korean food came to be after joint revision by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Korea Tourism Organization, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Korea Foundation, the National Institute of the Korean Language and other experts in the field of food, cookery and foreign languages.
According to its standard Romanization, kimbap, for example, will be described as "dried seaweed rolls/ Korean Rolls", bibimbap is "rice mixed with vegetables and beef", kimchi-jjigae is "kimchi stew" and samgyeopsal is "Korean style bacon".
Aside from how to describe, however,
not much has changed for the existing spelling of most of the standard dishes, save "tteokbokki", Korea's red-hot rice cake snack, which has the brand new Romanization "topokki" to make it easier for non-Koreans to remember both in spelling and pronunciation.
The e-book on new Romanization that will also be released in Chinese and Japanese will further include photos of the dishes, recipes and recommended side dishes. The information will be made into a booklet to be distributed to Korean restaurants, not only at home but also those operating abroad through Korean embassies. The government plans to release French and Spanish versions as well.
The free e-books will be available for downloading from the website Food in Korea (
Open the link). In the meantime, you can download the newly Romanized menu (English only) here (
Open the link).
By Kim Hee-sung
Korea.net Staff Writer
