My Family Recipe

Korean BBQ Was the One Dish That Made Me Feel American

The salty-sweet story behind a very Korean-American recipe.

by:
July 17, 2018

Good food is worth a thousand words—sometimes more! In My Family Recipe, a writer shares the story of a single dish they've inherited, and why it's meaningful to them.


Photo by Danie Drankwalter

As the child of Korean immigrant parents in ’90s-era Los Angeles, I’d say that much of my life growing up felt like one big dichotomy. At home, I was 100% bona fide Korean. It was important to my parents that my little sister and I stay immersed in our culture, which meant we were only allowed to speak Korean at home, and we only ever had Korean food for dinner.

At school, however, I was American. While LA is now renowned for its Koreatown—home to the biggest population of Koreans outside of South Korea—my pocket of suburban Southern California in the late ’80s and early ’90s was oblivious to what or where Korea even was. My school was predominantly white, where I was one of maybe two Koreans among a handful of Asians. I was often asked if I was Chinese or Japanese, back when it was still commonly accepted to call East Asians “Oriental.”

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I was always very aware that I was an outsider. My soccer abilities were questioned at recess due to the color of my skin and the size of my eyes. I’d be asked if I could see through my “squinty” eyes (which is ironic, considering my eyes are actually quite huge, if you were to look at them plainly!). I remember one time mispronouncing the name of those aluminum juice pouches I brought for lunch because I had unknowingly adopted my mom’s pronunciation of “Cah-puh-ree Sun,” and never hearing the end of it.

I split my life between these two versions of myself—the one at home where I was asked to be Korean, and the one at school where I was made fun of for not being American enough. Every morning, I would walk to the bus stop and wave bye to my mom, who would stand in the threshold of the front door, waving back. The bus stop was three blocks away, and it was within these three blocks that I would have to transform into my “American” self. With my wholesome non-Korean lunch in tow, I’d convert the thoughts in my brain from Korean to English and assimilate into someone to whom my peers could relate.

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Top Comment:
“As an adult, I’m so grateful that I now am proud of my culture and embrace being a Korean-American. We all seem to share the similar journey of finding ourselves within both cultures and enjoying the best of what both cultures have to offer and that warms my heart. Thanks for the wonderful piece! ❤️❤️❤️”
— Erin
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Needless to say, meal times were especially fraught. No one needed to know about the kimchi jjigae I had for dinner the night before, including my friends who thought it smelled like socks. One time, in pre-school, the teacher wrote home that I never finished my snack-break fruit cup, which was a syrupy textural revulsion. Canned peaches were never something we’d eaten at home.

Another time, in seventh grade, I opened up a Tupperware of kimbap (Korean-style sushi rolls, essentially), much to my delight. But after a few bites, my friend peered over and disdainfully remarked, “What is that? What’s in there?” I hesitantly responded that the rolls had fish cakes in them, which of course elicited a very loud “EWWW.” I closed up my lunchbox half-uneaten, and finished the rest in the backseat of the car after my mom picked me up from school.

I was surprised, then, to read Hana Asbrink’s piece a few weeks ago about lunchbox anxiety; it seems she and I were ridiculed for the exact same eomuk, or odeng, fish cakes. There must've been something in the water back then. After traumatic experiences like that, I carried on those early years only speaking Korean and eating Korean food at home, and only speaking English and eating “American” food at school. I imagine this was what it was like for many others growing up Asian in America in the ‘80s and ‘90s.


Saturdays were different. For three hours every Saturday morning, my two worlds would collide at Korean school.

The Korean School Association of America was founded in 1982, when immigration from Korea to America was spiking, and right around when my parents immigrated from Seoul. The KSAA hosted weekend Korean language classes at local Los Angeles public schools, where we would split up by grades, i.e. language comprehension levels, to learn Korean reading and writing, history, and culture. Saturday mornings were both a chore and a joy for me—annoying to have to go to school on a Saturday, but eventually a respite from having to pretend so much Monday through Friday. At Korean school I was surrounded by fellow Korean-American children, and we could easily code-switch from conversing in Korean for our teachers and parents to palling around in English, trilling out “Okay? Okay!” a dozen different ways like only Valley kids can.

On special Saturdays, particularly holiday weekends, the school would cancel class and schedule an outdoor park day for the kids and their families. My mom would always bring her LA galbi—barbecued, cross-cut short ribs.

LA galbi, or kalbi (you’ll find both romanizations) is different than the short ribs you find in Korea, which is thickly cut along the bone and grilled like an unrolled blanket. LA galbi, on the other hand, is thinly cut across the bone, so each strip has three or four little oblong pieces of bone along the top. This type of cut was adopted by Korean immigrants in Los Angeles, since it was cheaper and more easily available at the local Mexican supermarkets (this was pre-H-Mart-era America, when my mother would drag my sister and me to three different grocery stores in one trip to load up on the best deals).

More than any other food, LA galbi is a Korean dish that is uniquely Korean-American. A lot of Korean meats were once unwanted off-cuts—pork belly, oxtails, brisket, and short ribs—and were popular amongst poorer Koreans as they recovered from the Korean War, and for immigrants in America as they worked to make ends meet. I love LA galbi because it could have only been developed by Korean immigrants making the best of foreign resources in a foreign country, and because it's a remnant of my parents' very particular experience.

The thin cut also helps the salty-sweet marinade soak in faster. My mom would marinate the cross-cut short ribs in advance; my dad would help her prepare the meat. My sister and I would be tasked with peeling all the garlic cloves as a break from our endless homework. We’d take as long as possible to avoid doing homework, catching each papery sleeve with our fingernails until our fingers would be sticky and useless, and my mom would throw up her hands and whisk the bowl away so she could finish the job herself more efficiently.

When we'd get to the park, all of us kids would run off to play while the adults set up the grill, usually one of those junky park grills where you first have to clean away the previous user's sticky ashes. Then they'd grill up hot dogs, hamburgers, and the LA galbi. My mom would cut the long strips into kid-sized bites, each with their own little bone “handle,” and chase me down from playing to shove one of the little sections into my mouth. It would burn my mouth, having come fresh off the grill, and I would furiously breathe in cooling bursts until I could stand it (thanks to my mom, now I have an asbestos mouth, which comes in handy when I have to taste my own cooking).

I love LA galbi because it could have only been developed by Korean immigrants making the best of foreign resources in a foreign country.

Now that I live on the East Coast, LA galbi is hard to find in the local Koreatown restaurants. Cross-cut ribs are often difficult to source and tend to be expensive when you can, because short ribs have become quite the premium as of late. But recently, I found a bunch on sale at the Western Beef by my office, a reliable source for ethnic-oriented ingredients, and called up my mom to refresh myself on her recipe.

“For 10 pounds, I use about half a cup of soy sauce,” she told me over the phone. “You really don’t need as much soy sauce as you’d think. And definitely cut it with some water. And add sugar to taste.” I smiled because she could only recall the recipe as she makes it, which is gigantic-Korean-mom scale, having made it in bulk more often than not. It’s the kind of dish you prep in advance and freeze, which means having galbi for weeknight dinners is actually not unmanageable. In practice, as I set to recreate my mother’s recipe, I found myself leaning a little heavier on the soy sauce—I wanted to punch up the flavor and assert more of its Korean taste.

But the recipe sticks closely to my mother’s, and takes me back to one of those rare moments where we got to really enjoy being American as a family, like everyone else: grilling outdoors, playing in the park with the other families, and eating LA galbi. Finally, here was a Korean food I absolutely adored that I could eat in public, and feel both sides of me—the inward Korean one and the outward American one—come together at peace.


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Irene Yoo is chef and creator of Yooeating, a Korean American food channel that explores Korean home cooking, street food, and culinary history. She has developed recipes and penned essays for Food52, Food Network, and Bon Appetit, and previously presented about Korean culinary history at The Korea Society and The Museum of Food and Drink.

23 Comments

7ommyc45531 June 1, 2022
All the time growing up. My mother being from suwon. At lesson and less as the years have passed. Dude to the cost of the beef ribs. Ow it's a special occasion thing....when I was a kid it was weekly
 
marilu May 22, 2020
Haha! Spot on! I feel like I rode a time machine while reading this. The smell of galbi still takes me back to church bbq events and summer time with the family fanning ourselves with those cheap korean fans you get at the korean markets. Do you know the one I’m talking about? It has the wooden handle and the Pepsi-like swirl in the middle?
 
Irene Y. May 24, 2020
Absolutely, the taeguk fans! It's crazy how quickly those traditional handicrafts take you back to being a kid.
 
Connie August 6, 2018
I too thought I was reading my own life story around SoCal, Saturday K-school, stinky lunches, and the whole identity crisis thing in the 80-90's. Another confirmation that I wasn't making things up, that I'm definitely not alone, but also that bicultural confusion as a kid and teenager is real! Thanks for sharing.
 
Cookie July 23, 2018
What a lovely, well written article Irene, thank you. And now I finally have a recipe for the style of short ribs I love.
 
Erin July 22, 2018
Loved reading this piece and it took me back to my own childhood being an immigrant from Korea at the age of 12. It was the late 90’s in the suburb of Atlanta, GA (enough said). Instantly at the sensitive age that I was, all I wanted was to not be weirdly stared at or made fun of for being different and not speaking English very well for the first few years. As an adult, I’m so grateful that I now am proud of my culture and embrace being a Korean-American. We all seem to share the similar journey of finding ourselves within both cultures and enjoying the best of what both cultures have to offer and that warms my heart. Thanks for the wonderful piece! ❤️❤️❤️
 
Hana A. July 18, 2018
Thanks so much for writing this, Irene. I felt like I was reading about my own childhood, down to the beloved/hated K-school. We will have to get together for some K-food someday. :)
 
Eric K. July 18, 2018
Can I come
 
Irene Y. July 19, 2018
Omg yes please, I would love that!!
 
CameronM5 July 18, 2018
I love hearing about how different cultures are raised coming from a boring NY suburb where everyone was painfully the same. Thank you for sharing!
 
Eric K. July 18, 2018
Thanks for reading, Cameron.
 
Jenny July 18, 2018
I'm half Korean, and had a very different experience growing up--my mom was trying to learn to be an American and didn't want her children to be stigmatized for being different, so I never really experienced being Korean--except for the food. Her kalbi is not LA kalbi (Asian pear? White onion??) but it always transports me to childhood, when my mom was afraid of not fitting in but made delicious food no one else had ever heard of.
 
Hana A. July 18, 2018
Hi Jenny - my husband (who is also half Korean) had a similar experience with a mom who just wanted the kids to assimilate. It sounds like your mom's galbi marinade is very traditional and delicious though (even if she didn't use the LA galbi long flanken cut)!
 
Rebecca July 17, 2018
Great piece! Cool to see life for Korean Americans growing up in la was so similar to my experience growing up in the suburbs of ga, down to Saturday’s spent in korean school. But the moms brought us Dunkin’ Donuts or fast food for lunch. Kalbi picnics were reserved for our church picnics where we tried our best to eat while dodging the millions of yellow jackets swarming our site, lol. Good memories ❤️
 
Eric K. July 18, 2018
go yellow jackets! #gatech
 
Irene Y. July 19, 2018
Omg we totally had Costco muffins and pink box donuts for Korean school breaks too! So many french twists.
 
Matt July 17, 2018
I love stories of immigrants creating their own meat dishes. This sounds so much like the story of italian american meatballs.
 
Eric K. July 17, 2018
Matt, I'd love to hear more about that?
 
Matt July 21, 2018
The Smithsonian and The Atlantic give a good narrative of how traditional polpette in Italy grew into a new dish that's uniquely American due to the immigrants adaptability to new cuts of meat in their adopted county:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/is-spaghetti-and-meatballs-italian-94819690/

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/03/history-of-the-meatball/475083/
 
Whats4Dinner July 17, 2018
So being a Korean growing up in OHIO, yes, OHIO, oy. What I remember is Korean food bringing us together, us meaning family and community. We had a lot of family immigrate then so really, it became if you're Asian you were related to that other Asian person you knew, LOL! But yes, I remember having big family BBQs at a public park....such fond memories, and there was no judgment. Fellow BBqers were like, "Whatchacookin'?" Not like the Oakland neighborhood watch folks calling the police because families are having a friggin' BBQ! Didn't mean to get political but I wish we had the "Saturday Korean school." Maybe my mom wouldn't criticize me so much for not speaking Korean (of course I understand it, but not telling her).
 
Eric K. July 18, 2018
thanks for sharing; i love this—also, the most meaningful food is political, let's be honest
 
Eric K. July 18, 2018
Saturday Korean school was a blessing and a curse, but it did help me become fluent in a language I probably couldn't have learned otherwise.
 
Eric K. July 17, 2018
Irene, it's crazy how similar your story is to mine, even though I grew up on the other side of the country. Maybe the Korean-American experience is like those strip malls, repeated but with variance, the good and the bad. I, too, attended a 3-hour Saturday school for Korean language and culture, and we also had Outdoor Days which I *despised*. Thanks for sharing this with us.