Award-winning chef Invoice Kim, one of many architects that helped set up Chicago as a world-class meals vacation spot, immigrated to the USA from Seoul, South Korea, in 1977, on the age of seven.
“When my household moved to the states, I used to be excited, but in addition scared,” Kim says about that point. “I missed Korea, particularly throughout Chuseok, our harvest pageant. Again residence, it was a time for household, meals and remembering our ancestors. In our new residence, the whole lot felt completely different. Nobody knew about Chuseok.”
Virtually half a century later, a bunch of Korean cooks are hoping to vary that.
The three-day Korean vacation is well known on the eighth month of the lunar calendar throughout the full moon; this 12 months Chuseok begins on Monday. The special day is marked by charye, or memorial companies, the place homage is paid to ancestors. Meals and wine is left as choices throughout these ceremonies and folks spend the times making ready meals with their households. Festivities undergo the night time with individuals staying up late to want upon the moon when it’s at its brightest. Chuseok is commonly oversimplified as “Korean Thanksgiving.”
“The whole nation will cease what it’s doing to prepare for Chuseok,” says Andy Lim, government chef at fashionable Korean restaurant Perilla in West City. “Rising up, we by no means celebrated it right here in America, however yearly that it occurred, so long as I can keep in mind, my mother would speak about it. She would discuss in regards to the video games they performed, the meals they ready, and staying up all night time together with her siblings and cousins.”
The separation of households attributable to immigration and comparatively small Korean communities in cities like Chicago translated into Chuseok being a reminiscence for a lot of Korean People, slightly than a continued custom.
Andy Lim, government chef of Perilla restaurant in West City, says he didn’t rejoice Chuseok rising up. “The whole nation will cease what it’s doing to prepare for Chuseok,” he says. “Rising up, we by no means celebrated it right here in America, however yearly that it occurred, so long as I can keep in mind, my mother would speak about it. She would discuss in regards to the video games they performed, the meals they ready, and staying up all night time together with her siblings and cousins.”
Heidi Zeiger/For the Solar-Occasions/Solar-Occasions workers
“However I didn’t wish to overlook,” says Kim. “So we cooked what we might. I informed my associates in regards to the which means of the vacation, about honoring those that got here earlier than us and being grateful for what we now have. We shared meals, recollections and laughter. It wasn’t precisely like residence, however it felt heat and proper. I spotted Chuseok doesn’t stay in a single place. It lives in our hearts. And by sharing it, I introduced a chunk of Korea to my new residence.”
This 12 months, that very same dedication to sharing Chuseok traditions is taking form on a bigger scale.
Lim, alongside Chris Jung, government chef of Maxwells Buying and selling in West Loop and a 2025 James Beard Award finalist for Finest Chef Nice Lakes, have teamed up with different Korean cooks within the metropolis to host the inaugural Chuseok celebration at Jung’s restaurant on Monday. The 200-person occasion is offered out and set to function bites from the duo in addition to from Jennifer Kim of Proxi, the West Loop restaurant specializing in coastal Asian delicacies; Min Lee and Hans Hwang from Mister Tiger, a Korean consolation meals restaurant in West City; and cocktails from Christina Chae of cocktail bars Golden Years and Moonflower in West City and Portage Park, respectively.
A few of the most conventional meals loved throughout the vacation embody songpyeon, pillowy half-moon formed rice muffins crammed with components comparable to sweetened crimson bean paste, toasted sesame seeds and mung beans; japchae, chewy glass noodles stir-fried with greens in a savory sauce; in addition to jeon (additionally known as jon or chun), savory pancakes of batter-fried greens, meats and seafood.
All of which shall be served at Maxwells Buying and selling in celebration of the Korean vacation — the primary of its form amongst Chicago’s prime cooks.
“We don’t have that very same reminiscence Chef Kim has of celebrating Chuseok again in Korea,” says Jung. “For us, it’s nearly like we’re rediscovering our heritage.”
Alongside the standard meals, Chae will serve a boozy model of hwachae, a watermelon milk fruit punch made with tequila; and ssanghwa, a standard Korean natural tea, combined with scotch.
Chae met Jung and Lim finally 12 months’s Jean Banchet Awards. She says they handled her like and equal and from there, the group bonded over the now-defunct Chicago Korean Pageant.
“It was all Korean distributors, Korean meals, Korean drinks, snacks and desserts,” says Chae in regards to the pageant held in Albany Park that ended a couple of years in the past. “And there have been numerous Korean brick and mortar [stores] that surrounded the pageant. It was humorous that all of us keep in mind this one factor that isn’t a factor anymore. So we mentioned, ‘Why don’t we attempt to get one thing like that going once more?’ That is our intro to working collectively and possibly doing one thing larger sooner or later.”
Lim credit the worldwide curiosity in Korean tradition — pushed largely by Okay-pop — as creating the correct circumstances to carry a Chuseok occasion to life, now.
“It’s a shock to my mother and father to see how massive the affect of Korea has turn out to be globally,” Lim says. “It’s thoughts boggling as a result of I keep in mind rising up and getting tormented about my meals and my tradition and now it’s being embraced into the mainstream. It’s a little bit bittersweet.”
Altering attitudes towards Korean tradition additionally impressed a extra private motivation behind the occasion.
“Excited about our mother and father whereas discussing the potential of this occasion was an enormous a part of it,” Lim says. “We needed to go to our mother and father and say ‘Hey, come see what we’ve executed. Come see that we created this occasion so you’ll be able to rejoice once more, as a way to keep in mind.’”
The group hopes this group effort will function a catalyst for constructing a stronger neighborhood rooted in Korean tradition — the type Kim certainly longed for when he arrived within the U.S., nearly 48 years in the past.
Within the intro to Kim’s 2018 cookbook “Korean BBQ,” one of many first American cookbooks to give attention to Korean delicacies, he wrote: “In America, I used to be an alien: nobody appeared like me. I used to be depressing, and I simply needed to return residence … a 12 months later, when extra Korean immigrants got here to our faculty, I used to be the one serving to them get acclimated and guiding them by means of life in America.”
Kim has constructed a profession outlined by this type of management.
“Invoice is such an vital determine for my technology and the longer term technology of Korean American of us, as a result of we had no illustration,” Lim says. “We had nobody that appeared like us and will information us and present us that our meals and our tradition mattered. Kim was a pioneer and he nonetheless is so monumental in ensuring that we now have a platform to share our story. It’s such an honor to even share this tradition with somebody like him. We actually needed him to be part of this however he’s going to be out of city.”
Whereas Kim isn’t taking part on this inaugural occasion, the gathering of award-winning Korean cooks celebrating the vacation highlights his simple influence on the neighborhood. Chuseok turning into extra mainstream is proof that Kim has helped usher in a brand new period, one the place a brand new wave of Korean cooks and mixologists are moving into their energy and asking their friends and allies to hitch them.
Conventional Korean meals served throughout Chuseok
Listed below are some conventional dishes served throughout the harvest vacation.
Bo ssam: This conventional dish can be not vacation particular however it’s usually served throughout Chuseok and is private to each household. It’s a dish that his chef Chris Jung and his household eats and serves on the vacation and it is going to be served on the cooks’ Chuseok occasion.
Fruits: Asian pears and apples are featured prominently throughout the harvest vacation and are good items for hosts.
Galbi-jjim: Sluggish-cooked beef brief ribs with veggies served with a candy and savory sauce with a nutty profile.
Kimchi: Extensively thought-about the nationwide dish of Korea, kimchi — napa cabbage that’s salted, seasoned with chile pepper and fermented — is served at nearly each meal.
Japchae: Chewy glass noodles are stir-fried with greens and meat in a savory sauce.
Jeon: Additionally known as jon or chun, these savory pancakes consisting of batter-fried greens, meats and seafood are one other vacation staple.
Songpyeon: These pillowy half-moon formed rice muffins crammed with components comparable to sweetened crimson bean paste, toasted sesame seeds and mung beans are a signature merchandise on households’ tables for the vacation.
