Cat Sarsfield connects to her roots in Korea
Seoul feels like a city made up of a hundred little cities. Perhaps this is what people think of London or New York or LA when they first go, but as you get used to them, these cities become whole again. But I see Seoul in fragments, little shards of wonder that glimmer with newness.
These shards are made up of family members squeezing my shoulders, vinyl-listening bars, street carts peddling tteok, the white-tipped view of Bukhansan, perfectly wrapped mandu, the glistening water, the sound of my mother crying and laughing and gossiping with her sisters, the hissing fire underneath thin strips of galbi…and more and more and more.
A strange thing happens when I arrive. It doesn’t feel like home. Those two decades between being an 11 year old in a foreign city, the little girl who dyed a strip of copper in her hair and fought with her cousin and learned how to say spring onions in Korean as she helped dress the whole-steamed trout with her aunt, felt far away from the 32-year-old woman who had travelled the world over and was now the one responsible for holding the plane tickets and guiding her parents through the airport. I was waiting for the first bite of food, wondering what that might be, not knowing what the neighbourhood would bring. My cousin had picked us up from the airport and drove us the long 90 minutes into the heart of the city, and from the back of the car, I watched the city unfold in front of me.
Our first meal is familiar and familial. Dishes that I know like the back of my hand, shared with a family member whom I haven’t seen in 20 years. Pajeon, a savoury pancake packed with seafood and spring onions (I whisper to myself, ‘pa’ 파) and dipped in soy sauce; bulgogi, thin strips of beef sweetly marinated and flash fried; bibimbap, crackling as they bring it over, the egg yolk mixed with chopsticks; rings of slippery squid bathed in a thick gochujang sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds; countless little bowls of banchan boasting kimchi, na mool (bean sprouts), soft silken tofu drenched in chilli.
Food has always been the connector in our family, from the Korean to the Lancastrian side. And so, the next three weeks can be unpicked by the meals we shared, whether it was the three of us around the table in our apartment or my mother and I sat on the floor of her youngest brothers’ house, a few miles from where she grew up fifty years before.
Let’s begin with the grocery stores, which we frequented with urgent excitement. A superstore carrying everything you need from Korean skincare to speckled lobsters as big as your head. Then there were the neighbourhood markets that lay underground, where the aunties are fermenting kimchi, folding mandu, selling plastic house slippers and stewing pots and impossibly sharp knives that cost £100 thousands of miles west. There’s the 7-Eleven across the street from our place where I bought tall packets of cold hazelnut coffee and plastic-wrapped rice triangles filled with everything from Spam to cold bulgogi.
It was both refreshing and unnerving being in a city where restaurant recommendations felt obsolete. Most meals were eaten with family at decidedly Korean restaurants. One lunch was eaten quite literally at the bottom of my 90-something-year-old uncle’s apartment building, where the four of us sat around a wooden table that fully pulled out to the side so the servers could place a similarly sized block of dishes. Flash-fried cod, steamed eggs, glossy japchae noodles and salty, almost caramelised dried anchovies.
We introduced my dad to dak dori tang, a spiced chicken stew, thanks to a recommendation I found on TikTok. We walked down an unassuming alley where businessmen in suits were falling out of bars and found ourselves in a tiny spot where every table was equipped with a single portable hob. Run by three sisters—who were all still cooking, cutting fresh noodles and serving Kelly beers themselves—the restaurant serves stew and stew only. The sisters turn on the burner, the tteok rises to the top and you serve yourself until the meat is finished. At the end, they come over with a handful of hand cut noodles and drop them into the remaining broth so you can finish the meal. My version of a perfect savoury dessert.
There are so many more meals that I could write about. The regal spread made by my wesimmo in Ulsan that we ate at midnight; the ramyun I shared with my youngest second cousins who were genuinely shocked by my chopstick dexterity; the perfectly cold martinis I drank with my parents in the very same hotel they got married in four decades earlier.
I often feel like a fraud for not knowing Seoul more deeply. For leaving so much time between last visiting. For still feeling like a foreigner in a country that speaks my mother’s tongue. It’s a good thing that every member of our family, from east to west, can communicate their joy and their love through food.
Cat Sarsfield
Not everyone is a reader, but when Cat puts pen to paper, just about everyone becomes one. A Londoner, certainly, but this storyteller has actually laid roots in many places across the globe. From Cornwall to Bali, she's seen it all. While her bread and butter is crafting concise copy, what's dearest to her may well be, well, bread and butter. Or rice. Or roast chicken. Come to Cat for perfect pubs, great restos for a solo dinner and the dreamiest surf spots.
