I fondle the produce and say the words aloud- chamoe melon, danmuji.
I can hardly speak Korean, but in H Mart I feel like I’m fluent. No matter how critical or cruel she seemed-constantly pushing me to be what she felt was the best version of myself-I could always feel her affection radiating from the lunches she packed and the meals she prepared for me just the way I liked them. In many ways, food was how my mother expressed her love. When spring arrived and the weather turned, we’d bring our camp stove outdoors and fry up strips of fresh pork belly on the deck. On my birthday, she’d make seaweed soup: a traditional dish for celebrating one’s mother that is also what women typically eat after giving birth. We ate in accordance with the seasons and holidays. If we wanted the same kimchi stew for three weeks straight, we relished it until a new craving emerged. The concept of prepping meals for the week was a ludicrous affront to our life style. We were particular about everything: kimchi had to be perfectly sour, samgyupsal perfectly crisped hot food had to be served piping hot or it might as well be inedible.
This meant an over-the-top appreciation of good food and emotional eating.
#FALLING SLOWLY LYRICS HOW TO#
While she never actually taught me how to cook (Korean people tend to disavow measurements and supply only cryptic instructions along the lines of “add sesame oil until it tastes like Mom’s”), she did raise me with a distinctly Korean appetite. When I was growing up, with a Caucasian father and a Korean mother, my mom was my access point for our Korean heritage. Sobbing near the dry goods, asking myself, “Am I even Korean anymore if there’s no one left in my life to call and ask which brand of seaweed we used to buy?” Or in the freezer section, holding a stack of dumpling skins, thinking of all the hours that Mom and I spent at the kitchen table folding minced pork and chives into the thin dough. Instead, you’ll likely find me crying by the banchan refrigerators, remembering the taste of my mom’s soy-sauce eggs and cold radish soup. They don’t prop Goya beans next to bottles of sriracha here. H Mart is freedom from the single-aisle “ethnic” section in regular grocery stores. It’s the only place where you can find a giant vat of peeled garlic, because it’s the only place that truly understands how much garlic you’ll need for the kind of food your people eat. It’s where Korean families buy rice cakes to make tteokguk, a beef soup that brings in the new year.
#FALLING SLOWLY LYRICS FULL#
The “H” stands for han ah reum, a Korean phrase that roughly translates to “one arm full of groceries.” H Mart is where parachute kids go to get the exact brand of instant noodles that reminds them of home. For those of you who don’t know, H Mart is a supermarket chain that specializes in Asian food.
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