Modern Korean cuisine, history of ham are focus of new books

‘Everyday Korean: Fresh, Modern Recipes for Home Cooks’ by Kim Sunee and Seung Hee Lee (Countryman Press, $29.95)

In 2008, Kim Sunee, a Koreanborn food writer who was raised in New Orleans by adoptive parents, returned to Seoul, where she was abandoned in a market by her mother at age 3.

She was on a book tour with her best-selling memoir, “Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home” (Grand Central Publishing, 2008).

Her interpreter for the journey was Seung Hee Lee, a 25-year-old Korean woman about to head to the States to pursue a Ph.D. in human nutrition at Johns Hopkins University.

Bonding over food, the women became fast friends, and their friendship spawned a book, “Everyday Korean,” a collection of recipes that interpret Korean classics for modern American audiences.

Today, Lee lives in Atlanta, where she is an epidemiologist for the CDC, teaches cooking classes and maintains a lively and engaging social media presence that includes 33,000 Instagram followers.

For some time now, I’ve been mesmerized by her Instagram account, where she posts pictures of her adventures in food and wine. So it’s a delight now to discover her book, with its fusion recipes for the likes of Kimchi Bacon Mac and Cheese, Roasted Pepper Queso Fundido with Gochujang Sour Cream, and Focaccia with Fried Kimchi.

Though many of these creations are grounded in tradition (kimchi, banchan, soups), many others suggest ways to transform Korean staples into satisfying dishes that are easier for everyday cooks to manage.

Bulgogi, thin slices of beef that are usually sizzled on a tabletop grill, isn’t easy to make at home. So the authors pack those same flavors into bulgogi meatballs, which can be served on skewers, tucked into sliders or used in poutine the next day.

Recipes are as simple as twoingredient sauces and easy banchan (the little dishes that accompany every Korean meal) — and as involved as Traditional Napa Cabbage Kimchi, which takes days to salt and ferment. (Not to worry kimchi lovers: There are recipes for kimchi slaws and salads that can be assembled and served the same day.)

Roasted Salmon with Gochujang Mayo would make a quick supper or dinner-party showstopper. Braised Short Ribs with Cinnamon and Star Anise is a stunning, long-braised dish to warm you up on a winter day.

“Everyday Korean” is not a go-to textbook on classic Korean, but a lovely and highly personal look at how two smart Korean-American women cook for family and friends.

Lucky for us that Lee and Sunee found each other and decided to share.

‘Ham’ by Damon Lee Fowler (University of North Carolina Press, $20)

Savannah cookbook author Damon Fowler is a big old Southern ham who also happens to be a fine culinary historian. That makes him a perfect match for the University of North Carolina Press’s latest Savor the South dispatch, “Ham.”

Writing with scholarly erudition, well versed in the arcana of Southern culinary letters from the time of Martha Washington up to the present day, Fowler makes it clear how tender Southern people are when it comes to ham.

Of that autumn day on which he tasted a bite of pasture-raised pork, after years of eating bland, mass-produced hog, Fowler recalls being “enveloped in a sudden rush of memory so sharp and happy that I literally burst into tears before I could get control of myself.”

To be certain, this book is no ordinary ham sandwich.

After describing methods for baking, boiling, toasting and glazing a ham, and differentiating between methods of curing and preserving the meat, Fowler delivers 55 recipes ranging from simple ham and figs to his grandmother’s comforting ham dumplings to shrimp and ham jambalaya.

The author knows ham has an affinity for certain ingredients like eggs (think of the ham and cheese omelet) and techniques (think of the grilled cheese). In the latter department, he gives us five grilled sandwiches to choose from, no less, from a classic Cuban to a Monte Cristo.

There are ham salads, soups and gumbos, pasta and rice dishes, elegant dinner fare, and homespun dishes like grits casserole with ham and cheddar and ham tetrazzini.

A classicist with a strong appreciation for the food of Italy, Fowler does not scavenge the contemporary landscape looking for fanciful creations from celebrity chefs. (Thank goodness.)

With an approach that’s more history based than hammy, Fowler lovingly evokes how it feels to stand in Thomas Jefferson’s smokehouse at Monticello and take a whiff. “More than a century after the last hams were hung to smoke in that chamber, the aroma of salt, smoke, and air-dried pork still permeates the rough masonry walls and red clay floor, filling the air with its earthy perfume.”

In Damon Fowler, we have a true connoisseur of the hindquarters of swine.

Wendell Brock is an Atlantabased food and culture writer, frequent AJC contributor and winner of a 2016 James Beard Foundation Award for journalism.