Culinary tradition in the DPRK(North Korea) is one aspect of culture that is important to

study for those interested in this country. Nevertheless, very little is known about this subject. This
essay will seek to explain some of the trends in DPRK culinary tradition to outside observers, to
increase knowledge of this largely unknown national cuisine and to introduce these foods to others.
North Korean food is a part of the tradition of Korean cuisine. As the division of the
Korean peninsula is largely an arbitrary one that resulted from the politics of the Cold War, Korean
cuisine on each side of the 54th Paralell started out largely similar at the end of WWII. Since then, it
has diverged somewhat, leading to a situation wherein each side of the Korean penninsula has a slightly
different culinary tradition. It traditionally revolves around rice as the central dish, with sides of
vegetables, sometimes pickled as Kimchi, and sometimes a small portion of meat and fish. The
economic situation on both sides of the parallel have changed since then, and the culinary trends have
changed somewhat as a result. This essay will focus on the situation in North Korea, but will
reference South Korean cuisine for comparison, as this cuisine is more well known.
This essay will alternate between the offical names for North Korea(The Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, DPRK) and South Korea (The Republic of Korea, ROK) and their more
well known colloquialisms (North Korea and South Korea respectively).
This essay will be divided into three sections. The first will focus on the way that food is
produced and consumed. The second will focus on the ways in which food is portrayed in North
Korean propoganda and other media. The third will provide additional commentary, and will relate
what is talked about to the concepts and ideas we talked about in class.

Section 1: Food As it is Produced and Distributed

Food Production in North Korea

North Korea has for a long time suffered from having only a small area for
arable farming. The primary crop of choice in North Korea is wheat, not rice, and it has been around
the fortunes of this crop that the North Korean people have been left starved or satisfied. In line with
it's ideology of national self sufficiency, North Korean authorities worked to expand the farming
indusry after the Korean War in the 1950's. However, many sources note that the North Korean drive
towards agricultural self sufficiency came at the cost of dependence on foreign fertilizers, particularly
Soviet fertilizer, and therefore failed to achieve it's goals. Others point to a focus on heavy industry
that sabatoged the growth of the agricultural sector. Regardless, with the fall of the Soviet Union in
1989, North Korea no longer had access to a large supply of fertilizers, and so experienced
agricultural and economic collapse on an unprecedented scale.
North Korea has only a small amount of land that is fit for farming. Much of the far
northeast is too rocky and mountainous to farm. It is estimated that only about 20% of the Korean land
inorth of the 54th parallel s arable for farming. For much of the 20th century, this proved to be
sufficient to sustain the North Korean population. With the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union,
however, and the advent of difficult weather conditions, a precipitious drop in food production
occured. This proved to be greatly damaging to the North Korean regimes ability to feed it's own
people, and lead to a famine in the mid to late 1990's.

The yearly amount of grain produced

between 1989, the year the Soviet Union collapsed, and 2000, which is generally considered to be the
end of the famine period, decreased astronomical. In 1989, North Korea produced 5.48 million metric
tons of grain. In 2000, it could produce only 3.03 million metric tons.
This loss also could not be compensated for with outside trade. Although North Korea
posseses significant amounts of mineral wealth, it does not have sufficient accesss to extraction
methods or global markets to sell them. The North Korean regime is known to have confiscated

without warning assets of foreign investors in North Korea, and is also the target of many international
sanctions. Between 1990 and 2001, North Korean exports fell from $1.72 Billion USD to $515
Million USD, a drop of around 65%. Imports also fell, from $2.54 Billion USD to $965 Million USD.
This loss in capital and access to outside goods left the North Korean economy vulnerable, and lead in
large part to the collapse of food production in the 1990's.
From the 1950's to 1970's, North Korea gradually had moved towards the complete and
total collectivization of state owned farms. This idea resonated strongly with the Communist roots of
North Korea's Juche political policy, which called for state owned production of all essential materials.
For many years, farmers were expected to to turn over the entirety of their crop to state collectors every
harvest season. This system naturally promoted inefficiencies. Without any sort of incenvtive to grow
more food, inefficiency was rank. This inefficient agricultural policy combined with the
aforementioned climactic and political events combined to create the North Korean famine ofthe
1990's.
The famine in many ways revolutionized the way food was produced in the DPRK. As
public control of food production faltered and failed, some modest reforms were put in place to
alleviate the food shortage. Private farming lots were not only allowed, but encouraged. Farmers were
allowed to keep some part of their harvest for personal consumption and trade. Now, farmers are in
some instances able to keep up to 30% of the food they produce, and can organize their families into
work groups, meaning that they can essentially run family farms, albeit with a 70% tax on what they
produce.
The lack of complete and total starvation, however, can only be attributed to the
intervention of the international community, which answered a humanitarian appeal for food in North
Korea. The United States and the international community donated many billions of dollars in food aid
to North Korea. The last decade has seen a decrease in these amounts, but some amount of

humanitarian aid is still necessary.

Small reforms and liberalizations in the farming practices instituted by the government, has
allowed North Korea to become largely self sufficient in food production. A 2014 report found that
North Korea was able to replace the need for humanitarian aid with commercial exchange, signaling an
uptick in the economic capacity of North Korea. More grains and cereals are imported from Russia and
China, suggesting the Juche idea of national reliance has been set aside for the time being.
Food Distribution in North Korea
The methods of food distribution in North Korea is in the past was almost entirely
government run. Almost all food in North Korea has been in the past officially distributed through the
Public Distribution System(PDS). This means that the government was able to determine who gets
how much food and when. However, this system has been for some time in a state of transation.
Nowadays, more and more North Koreans are able to aquire sustenacne therough other avenues, such
as illegal or semi-legal farmer's markets.
The PDS system meant almost all the food the North Korean people produced could be sent
where the government wanted it to go. It is for this reason that the North Korean government was able
to shift food during the 1990's famine, and largely limited death by starvation by keeping much of the
country at survival rations. Nevertheless, the lack of food has left large parts of a generation of North
Koreans suffering from stunted growth, emotional, cognitive, and physical defficiencies. The situation
has improved somewhat since then, but there are still very low rates of calorie intake in North Korea.
Before and after the famine, the system has been somewhat efficient and successful in
providing equal amounts of foods to the population. Grains were distributed about every two weeks,
along with vegetables, which were either pickled or fresh. Meat, particularly the eating of draught
animals, was heavily regulated. It occured most often on the birthday of Kim Il-Sung or one of his

successors. Otherwise, North Koreans would pick up a bag with their allotment of grains, vegetables,
and rice at a distribution center, and would be largely limited to eating just that. Until recently, almost
all private enterprise was banned, and those not living in households would most often eat at mass
service state-owned resteraunts.
There are some official categorizations, such as age and occupation, that determine how
much of which staple foods certain people would get. Many differences, however, can exist between
the offical line of what the daily ration is and what the ration actually ends up being, especially during
famine times. Therefore, farmers, who are the first ones to access the food they produce, are often
better off than city dwellers. Residents of Pyongyang, the capital city, generally recieved fuller rations
than those in other cities, and members of the military are always kepy well fed.
Food as It Is is Consumed
The Food of The Supreme Leader
North Korea has been ruled for the entirety of it's existence as a political entity by members
of the Kim family, starting with Kim Il Sung, an Anti-Japanese revolutionary from the WWII era. He
ruled North Korea from 1945 until his death in 1994. He was succeeded by Kim Jong Il, his son, who
ruled until his death in 2012. He has since been succeeded by Kim Jong Un, who currently reigns in
Pyongyang.
Little is know about the culinary interests of Kim Il-Sung or King Jong-Un. Kim Jong Il,
however, was well known for his gastranomical interests. His former private chef, Kenji Fujimoto,
was hired from Japan specifically for the man known as the Marshal of the DPRK. He later left his
job with Kim Il-Sung and defected back to Japan. While he was Kim's chef, however, he satisfied the
palate of a man with luxorious taste. Kim would send him on global shopping trips to procure caviar,
fruits, fish, and other delicacies ordinary North Koreans lived without. He was so exact in his cuisine

that he required every grain of rice he ate to be inspected, with chipped or discolored grains being
thrown away. It is not known if the newest Kim, Kim Jong Un, is quite as particular, but if Kim Jong
Il is any indicator of his successor, the new leader of North Korea quite likely does get to eat in style.
The Food of the Well Off: Waffletown, DPRK
North Korean society is offically governed under a Marxist inspired Juche system,
wherein people are all supposed to be equal and share in the wealth of society. In truth, however, those
who are connected with government and have access to state agencies are better off than those outside
of such avenues. Even though such individuals often do not make much more than the average Kim,
they are entitled to large amounts of benefits, such as tickets to fancy resteraunts and amusement
parks, that serve to give them a higher quality of life than the average worker.
Pyongyang is the capital of the DPRK, and one of the few parts of North Korea that has
been extensively visited by foreigners. Therefore, we know a significant amount about the culinary
culture of this city in North Korea, which is generally more well off than the rest of the country. There
are Italian, Japanese, and Western style resteraunts that exist in Pyongyang for visiting, as well as the
prestigious National Resteraunt, which caters to those seeking an authenitic Korean dining. There is
even a copy of the American fast food joint, Waffleton USA, known in the DPRK as Samtaesong,
that serves fast food burgers, fries, and waffles to Pyongyang's elite.
How good is the Pyongyang dining scene? The reviews are mixed. Ardrei Lankov quotes
a Russian tourist as saying the food there is practically flawless. An American tourist, on the other
hand, reffered to the food he was showered with as matter meant to distract Americans from the fact
that hunger in the country is so widespread.
The Food of The Average North Korean

The food of the average North Korean is not nearly as diverse or interesting than that of the
ruling elite. Generally, a meal will consist of some grain or starch and a small amount of vegetables.
When Westerners tend to associate rice with Asian countries, rice is actually a sign of affluence in
North Korea. Grains and potatoes, are considered to be far more available in North Korea. Potato
campaigns were very prominent in Kim Jong Il's North Korea, and this tradition has apparently
continued under the reign of Kim Jong Un.

Section 2: Food as it is Portrayed

Cusine in the DPRK is so important, in fact, that one of the few websites to be run by the
DPRK government is actually a cooking site. Food often is portrayed in movies and propoganda
campaigns, and is the subject of stamps, posters and poems.
Dennis Rodman's Suitcase
Considering the fact that a visit to Pyongyang, or any other part of North Korea, would
have been prohibitibely expensive and would take me away from my studies, I elected to do the next
best thing and go to New York City for a weekend to experience DPRK cooking firsthand. Although
their are no government-run North Korean resteraunts in the Empire city, there are a pair of
resteraunts, Yang Ji Chon and Sol Han Gee, that have their cuisine modeled after North Korean
cuisine. These are, according to a Gothamist.com article, The closest you'll get to North Korean
cuisine without actually packing yourself into Dennis Rodman's suitcase.
To better understand actual North Korean food I chose to go to Yang Ji Chon to sample the
cuisine. Technically, this food is Yangxian, meaning it hails from the part of China closest closest to
North Korea, which has significant Korean population. Actual North Koreans, however, are unlikely

to be able to emigrate from their home country, so this is the closest I was able to get.
Luckily, one of my friends with me spoke enough Chinese to get us an order. All of the
other patrons at the resteraunt appeared to be of Asian descent. Does that mean the resteraunt was
authentic, or was it just indicative of the fact that the restaurant was in Flushing, one of the heavily
Asian populated sections of New York?
Regardless, I found the experience quite fascinating. One of the observations recorded in
the article is that North Korean food is generally believed to be less spicy that South Korean food.
Though I haven't eaten a large amount of South Korean food, from what I have eaten, I am inclined to
agree with this description.
Food Propoganda
As the Bible says, man does not live on bread alone, but without some kind of sustanance,
a person will inevitably waste away. North Korean propoganda surrounding food is clear to anyone
studying this reclusive state. Food is supposed to exist in abundance, even though it does not. This
idea is apparent in the propoganda posters and movie I have seen.
Tatiana Gabroussenko(Gabroussenko, 2014) divided North Korean propoganda
surrounding food in the last 25 years into two distinct periods. The first was the famine time, from
around 1990 to 2000. This time was reffered to as the ardous march, in reference to Kil Il-Sung's
march through Manchurian during the war against Japanese colinization. Even before this period,
people were increasingly being expected to eat less and less food, with campaigns like the Lets Eat
Two Meal Day! campaign happening more than a decade before. Excessive eating was derided as
being immoral, and dangerous to society. Gabroussenko cites a movie titled, A Family Basketball
Team, wherein a weak man regains his strength not through food, but through playing basktball. The
message is clear: the North Korean people are to live off discipline, not food, during the famine times

in North Korea. He notes that:

The apparent aims of this approach were not to irritate the starving population with appetizing images,
distract peop'es attention from the buring issue of malnutrition and boost the spirit of the audience by
dredirecting attention toward higher matters. (317)

The second recent period is the supposed time of plenty that arose in recent years. Over the
last ten years the North Korean economy has adapted to the market, and food consumption has risen
aboce the level it was at before. Now, while contrasting with the previous hardship, North Koreans
are extolled to appreciate the newfound affluence, and their distinctly Korean cuisine. Even simple
meals became glorified, with feasts of simple rabbits making their way into Propoganda films. In
North Korea, the presence of food is attributed to the benevolence of the ruling clique, while it's
absence is attributed to the outside intervention of foreigners.
Food policy and social control in the DPRK
The government of the DPRK uses food as a method to control the population. When food
is distributed on special occasions, it is often attributed to the current leader, who is portrayed as the
provider and benefactor of the Korean people. Food is also distibuted first to Pyongyang citizens, and
then to those outside the central courthouse of North Korea. It is believed that food is in fact one of the
main ways that the government ensures the loyalty of the people.
Section 3: Additional Commentary
One of the best resources I had while writing this paper was a chapter from Cuisine,
Colonialism, and Cold War Food in 20th Century Korea. There were two main sources cited in the

chapter on North Korea, the sixth in the book, titled, North Korea's Rocky Road to Affluence. One was
Nothing to Envy, a book we read during EAS101. The second was from the author of one of the books
I could find at my publiclibrary, Andrei Lankov. The chapter described the North Korean famine, said
a little about food, and began it's final paragraph by stating that:
"The question that remains unaswered at the end of this chapters is what North Koreans
actually ate during the last half century."
It goes on to attribute this to discrepancies between accounts and actual conditions in North Korea, and
the DPRK regimes stranglehold on information coming in and out of North Korea.
Clearly, the academic works on North Korean cuisine are very limited. Finding academic
sources for this project was an adventure in and of themselves. One article, written in English, was
hosted only on Korean sites. It took me hours of guesswork to finally navigate myself to access the
article. I also had the wonderful oppurtunity to access numerous primary sources, and also to learn
more about North Korean daily life while poring through large books that might have only one or two
passing references to food culture.
Nevertheless, I am , insofar as this paper is concerned, satisfied with the accounts and
testimonials I was able to recieve through books and articles written about daily life in Nroth Korea.
Completing this paper and project was an interesting and worthwhile experience, and I am surprised
and satisfied by how much I learned.
Pyongyang or Bust
I have never extensively studied North Korea before this project, but have grown
increasingly fascinated with the country as time has gone on. So facinated, in fact, that I looked into a
holiday package trip to North Korea to make during my upcoming study abroad in Singapore.

The packages are great-a whole suite of tour operators offer tours of the modern-day
"Hermit Kingdom". You can go for May Day, Kim Il Sung's Birthday, Party Foundation Day, the
Pyongyang Marathon-you name it, they've got one. You can visit resteraunts, tourist sites, the DMZ,
the statues of the deceased Kims(some aspects are apparently required), and even theme parks and film
studios in North Korea. Some operators even have student discounts!
It is estimated that some 1,5000 western tourists have traveled to North Korea as tourists
over the last year, as well as some thousands more non-Western tourists, including many thousands of
Chinese. Though even the most liberal estimates would be small in numbercompared to the overall
tourist numbers in many other countries, this number represents a significant source of income for the
cash strapped Kim regime, in addition to the standard drug smuggling and currency counterfitting.
This, of course, raised a whole set of moral issues. Is is right to support through tourism a
regime that builds nuclear weapons while starving it's people? Is it showing tacit support to participate
in pro-Kim rituals while despising him on the inside? How uncomfortable would it be to be drowned
in food "matter" , one one visitor described it, while the natives experience survival rations?
These moral questions alone were obviously not enough for me, because when I learned
my first choice for a summer internship, the Taiwanese Consulate in Boston, had absolutely no
interest in hiring me, I poked around one of the tour group websites and found that they were looking
to hire interns over the summer. I sent in an e-mail with my resume and cover letter to Young Pioneer
Tours, and heard back within a few day, after the manager returned from the illustrious "Christmas in
Pyongyang" tour.
They were, it said, very interested in having me work with them.
What a stroke of luck for me! Now I could be not only complicit in funneling money to a
genocidal regime, I'd quite possibly be actively promoting having other people do the same. As a job!

Reading more and more through research for this project about the conditions in North
Korea and the ways in which the Kims have completely destroyed the free capacity of the people living
there sent into my heart a more firm realization of what North Korea is-not a laughable joke, but a very
sad and solemn affairs for many millions of North Koreans. It was interesting learning about it, yes,
but it was also difficult to hear the plight of so many millions of people living in bondage.
If Communism is slavery, Juche Communism is the most complete form of slavery known
yet to man. Every aspect of one's life and thoughts is bound to an egomanaical clique of tyrants, they
aren't going to let anyone into or out of their country without this knowledge. I had assumed that Kim
Jong Un was the worst of his clan, and that the further back one went, the more reasonable the group
would be. The truth surprised me. It seems North Korea has liberalized in the last few decades, as
compared to before. Andrei Lankov refers to people under Kim Jong Il freely saying things that could
get them killed under Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Un is supposed to be even more benevolent, and he is
known for killing generals for insubordination with anti aircraft guns.
What is to be done then, in the face of the undeniable cruelty of the North Korean regime?
Is isolation the answer? Can we force the North Korean regime to aquience?
The truth, it seems, is no. Despite the economic disaster that has befallen North Korea
since the loss of it's main benefactor, the Soviet Union, the regime in place has clung to power.
Isolation has not served to remove the Kim regime from power, so we ought instead to use integration
to The best way to change North Korea, Lankov concludes, is to include North Korea, and so expose
them to another way of life.

Some have pointed out that this is untrue of China, but this, in my view, this comparison is
incongruent. The nature of the two regime is inherently different. The PRC regime can at least provide

food for it's people, and can at least deal with dissidents in a way that the rest of the world can detest,
but recognize still as something not quite barbaric. It has gone thorugh extensive economic reforms,
and it's economy has grown exponentially as a result. North Korea, on the other hand, if we can trust
any research done by defectors and scholars, really is as bad as it gets. Exposing it's people to different
ways of living would go far towards changing the social system. Even with the state's grip on power,
change is possible.
Studying and promoting North Korean tourism, then, would be a good oppurtunity, for
myself and the people of North Korea. Allowing them to see that another world exists might make
them question the one they live in. It could allow for oppurtunities to improve relations, and to foster
thought provoking diaglouge in foreigners and North Koreans alike.
Authenticity and North Korean Food
Should we compare, when looking for authenticitic (North) Korean food, to the cuisine of
Korea immidietaly after WWII? Is this even accurate, considering the fact that Japanese cuisine had
for around 50 years and had an impact on the nature of food on the penninsula. Or, is it better to
consider food to be something that is constantly in transition and flux? I would suggest that that the
last option is the best posibility.
The United States and her allies have had a large impact on the cuisine of South Korea
(Republic of Korea), which led to a trend of culinary nationalism in South Korea during the 1990's and
2000's. As I noted earlier, the DPRK(North Korea) was similarly experiencing a trend of culinary
nationalism during the early 2000's, but for different reasons. This has led to a situation where both
ends of the Korean penninsula were exporting their cuisines at around the same time. South Korea,
has been, for many reasons, economic strength being one, been much more successful in this
endeavor.

Nevertheless, North Korea, it could be argued, could have a much better claim to being
the better the true possesor of authentic Korean cuisine. Culinary change can only happen when food
supplies also change, and in a country with minimal imports, this is very rarely the case. North Korea,
despite it's experiments with new crops, has to depend largely on the foods that have been farmed in
the country for many generations. In fact, Gabroussenko notes that North Korean defectors in South
Korea believe that South Koreans have had their cuisine contaminated by foreign and modernist
influences. In their view, it is the food of North Korea, protected from outside culinary influences,
that truly represents the divided Korean nation.

Bibliography
Demick, Barbara. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. New York:

Spiegel & Grau, 2009. Print.

Salter, Christopher L. North Korea. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003. Print.
Sweeney, John. North Korea Undercover: Inside the World's Most Secret State.
New York: Pegasus, 2015. Print.
Cwiertka, Katarzyna Joanna. Cuisine, Colonialism and Cold War: Food in Twentiethcentury Korea. London: Reaktion, 2012. Print.
Gabroussenko, Tatiana. "Culinary Nationalism as an Instrument of North Korean
State Ideology."Journal of Korean Studies (2014): 314-23. Print.
"."
. Asahi Shinbum, 11 Dec. 2015. Web. 2 Jan. 2016.
Fujimoto, Kenji. "I Was Kim Jong Il's Chef." Trans. Makiko Kitamura. Atlantic 2004.
Print.

Demick, Barbara. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. New York: Spiegel &
Grau, 2009. Print.
Copy & Paste Parenthetical Check paper for grammar errors (copied to clipboard!)

Salter, Christopher L. North Korea. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2003. Print.

Copy & Paste Parenthetical Check paper for grammar errors (copied to clipboard!)

Sweeney, John. North Korea Undercover: Inside the World's Most Secret State. New York:
Pegasus, 2015. Print.

Cwiertka, Katarzyna Joanna. Cuisine, Colonialism and Cold War: Food in Twentiethcentury Korea. London: Reaktion, 2012. Print.