Sunkist Goes to Seoul

Are there lemons in Korea's culinary future? Sunkist traveled to Seoul, Korea this spring to find out.

Chef Allen Susser -- owner of Chef Allen's restaurant in Aventura, Florida, the author of The Great Citrus Book and a creator of New World Cuisine, which combines American, Caribbean and Latin flavors -- represented the company on a trip that was part teaching about citrus and part market research.

"I went to teach classes about lemons and to understand how the culture reacts to lemon, how they've incorporated it into their cuisine in the past and how they can incorporate it in the future," says the chef. It was his first trip to Korea, and he was impressed. "Koreans have a wonderful respect for food. They want flavor, as well as color and texture. There's a real caring and focus on service," he adds.

During the one-week stay, Chef Allen was on a mission to understand what's going on in the Korean culinary scene. He visited public markets and ate in a variety of restaurants, sampling everything from very traditional Korean banquet-style cuisine and Korean barbecue to the offerings of a hip and trendy fusion restaurant that could have fit in equally well in New York or Los Angeles.

Whether sampling local specialties, checking out market offerings or teaching culinary school students, Chef Allen focused on how to expand the purchase and use of lemons in Korea. "Lemons are found in the vegetable rather than the fruit section of grocery stores and markets, so they're not exactly considered a fruit," he says. "Koreans use a lot of acidity in cooking, but most of it comes from rice vinegars."

Chef Allen also taught a class of 30 students at La Cuisine, a full-time culinary academy that trains professional chefs and offers weekend classes to the public. He did a demonstration of lemon kimchi -- something between kimchi and preserved Moroccan lemons -- a dish he created about twenty years ago.

The class was an incredible experience for Chef Allen. "I started the class in a very formal manner with an interpreter.

Gradually the language of food took over. By the end of the class they were speaking to me in English. Food is the international language," he emphasizes.

Chef Allen continued, "The students were intrigued by the lemons and realized that lemons had great potential they had never envisioned. The chefs grew more interested in this three-dimensional ingredient, not just as a sour, but through the recipes we cooked together, as flavorful, aromatic, and refreshing. The students loved sampling their work and were proud to take home a sample of the new lemon kimchi."


Although he himself serves lemon kimchi in his Miami restaurant, before going to Korea Chef Allen had no idea that the country's cuisine contains so many kinds of kimchi. One of his great discoveries was the vast variety and versatility of this Korean side dish, which includes winter kimchi, water kimchi and kimchi using oysters and pickled shrimp among many other types.

How can Koreans incorporate citrus into their unique cuisine? "Citrus could be very well utilized in some of the traditional dishes, as a marinade for Korean barbecue or a glaze as they cook it. They also do a lot of fish and fried fish. Lemon works especially well with fried fish, because it cleans the palate," Chef Allen says. Through observing the food scene in Seoul, he is hopeful. "Koreans are at the crux of an environment changing from traditional to modern. The younger generation looks at food differently. They're open to international cuisine, not just traditional Korean food, but to flavors from around the world."