The Korean Cultural Centre in Egypt has opened its long-anticipated 2023 Korean Cooking Academy course. The course, which will run for four weeks, aims to spread the culture of Korean food, or Hansik, which is an essential part of Korean culture.
The course was open to 600 applicants, and 120 were accepted to participate. The course is supervised by Korean chef Hong Seng Hee, an expert in dietetics and responsible for quality control of several food companies.
Participants in the course will learn about the dining culture and explore traditional Korean dishes that are famous in every region of South Korea, such as bulgogi, kimbap, and sujebi. They will also learn about Korean street food, particularly tteokbokki.
The centre also plans to arrange a competition for the participants after the end of the course, in which new recipes will be created by combining Korean food with Egyptian food.
Oh Sungho, Director of the Korean Cultural Center, said that Koreans place great importance on food sharing, which is rooted in the culture of side dishes, or banchan, which are served with meals and shared by everyone sitting at the dining table. The most well-known banchan is kimchi, a Korean pickle.
In this spirit, the Korean Cultural Centre seeks, through organising this academy, to share the Korean food culture with the Egyptian people and to introduce the traditions related to preparing and serving food in Korea.
The director of the centre said that Korean food is popular in Egypt, especially among young people. He expressed his hope that this course will contribute to greatly enhancing dialogue and mutual understanding between the peoples of the two countries.
