S(e)oul food

A deep longing for familiar food is part of living abroad. The creation of home cuisine, soul food, is one of the cultural techniques used to contribute to our bodily and emotional wellbeing. This is food skills in migration. S(e)oul food links the provenance and cultural identity of South Korean migrants through their food to everyday realities and to their aspired future in a foreign country. Since the 1960s, Korean people have moved to Switzerland as migrant workers. Local food was unfamiliar to them at first but, over the years, they have established a diasporic culinary homeland for themselves which is also being adopted by Europeans: kimchi is becoming established as a new trendy vegetable dish. This book, like the exhibition it accompanies, invites readers to engage with the culinary history of German and Swiss Koreans. It provides a short introduction to anthropological research about the cultural technique of soul food, as well as the history of the Korean diaspora. It describes this Asian cuisine, which is still not well known, but is becoming more popular outside Korea. A short diversion into the particularities of kimchi – pickled spicy vegetables – leads onto the heart of S(e)oul food, with reminiscences about kimchi by two renowned Koreanists, Martina Deuchler and Helga Picht. Paintings by Cookie Fischer-Han illustrate personal memories of achieving integration between kimchi and cheese societies.