Hallyu (han (韓) meaning “Korean”, while liu or ryu (流) means “flow” or “wave) first made its bold entrance in China during the 1990’s with Korean soap operas. Since then, everything from Korean pop, entertainment shows, skincare/beauty products, to of course, cuisine, have become incredibly influential internationally. When taking a look at food, Korean BBQ has essentially become a beloved staple in bustling cities such as Los Angeles and New York. Simultaenously, spicy stuffed kimchi tacos, burgers, and hot dogs are rampantly spreading with a fiery heat.
However, at its core, Korean food is quite beautifully simplistic. Many dishes contain only a few integral ingredients that together render the dish complete in harmony. Through their innovative food writing and illustration collaboration, Eat Drink Draw, wife-and-husband team Hannah Bae and Adam Oelsner take a deeper and more meaningful look at Korean food, shedding light on the rich stories behind the ingredients and dishes. With their shared love for cooking and storytelling, Hannah and Adam creatively bring to life the often overlooked depth of Korean food and how it delicately intertwines with intricate layers of culture, politics, and history.
happily married since September 2016
The Rundown
Name: Adam Oelsner
Hometown: Fayetteville, Arkansas → Olympia, Washington → Brooklyn, NY
Currently: Owner of Magic Drop, a company that does music licensing– represents bands and composers, pitching their work to films and TV shows
Name: Hannah Bae
Hometown: Springfield, Virginia → Seoul, SK (2007-2013) → Brooklyn, NY
Currently: Freelancing as a writer, consultant and digital strategist for clients ranging from Doctors Without Borders to Getty Images
What motivated you two to start this project?
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Hannah: Last May, I quit my job at CNN. I was feeling like I couldn’t be as creative as I wanted to be if I had a full time journalism job that was very demanding. To add, Adam and I had already been talking a lot about our future both as a couple and as professionals. I remember asking myself what I was most passionate about, and I just kept coming back to Korea and food. I had lived in Seoul for six and a half years, and I felt like I hadn’t fully processed the entire experience. I wanted to make more of it.
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Adam: Korean food is actually one of the first things we bonded over. Right before meeting Hannah, I had started learning to cook Korean food more. Long before we even started our project, part of of our thing as a couple has been about both of us learning how to cook Korean food more, and me learning about Korea a lot more.
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Hannah: Early on in our relationship, we had doodled together whatever we would eat. And so we knew we had both loved to draw and cook. I feel like our project brings Adam’s cooking experience and knowledge of food, my personal experience with Korean food, and our artistic talents together in a really fun and interesting way.
Drawn together after Hannah and Adam’s trip to the Midwest in 2014
Is Eat Drink Draw your first collaboration?
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Adam: Yes. We had little drawings that were leading up to it, but Eat Drink Draw is essentially our first formal collaboration.
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Hannah: And we’re life partners.
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Adam: Yeah, that’s a collaboration. [chuckles].
As you mentioned earlier, both of you have artistic experience. How do you split up writing the descriptions and illustrating the foods? Who does what?
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Adam: Everything is collaborative. I think it’s more about who takes initiative on a project. Usually one person starts it and the other person comes in later and adds to it. So sometimes I’ll start a drawing and just finish it, and other times we’ll end up collaborating on a drawing. We always work together on the writing, though.
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Hannah: Yeah, it’s really fun having a collaborator as a writer because it’s often so solitary. Adam really challenges me to write more authentically.
Eat Drink Draw’s mission is to “encourage intercultural understanding by sharing your love of cooking, eating, and learning about Korean cuisine.” What is your love story with Korean food?
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Hannah: For me personally, I grew up in the United States. I didn’t really like Korean food growing up, and when I went to Korea, I realized that it was because my mom wasn’t the best cook [chuckles]. She doesn’t really enjoy cooking so she never really developed a lot of skill in it.
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Adam: You know, Hannah has always told me funny stories about her mom’s cooking — that she would leave giant chunks of ginger in soups. So naturally, of course a little kid is going to bite into it and be like, “Ew!”
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Hannah: Right. But, when I went to Korea it was like an epiphany. The food was so delicious and, more so, I felt really connected to it. I had such a deep and soulful experience just learning about Korean food and the history of it. It is so essential to Korean culture. That’s what really sparked my interest in Korean food. To add, I also fell into food writing while I was working at Joongang Daily. The newspaper also paid for my meals so I immediately jumped in and said, “I’ll do it!” [chuckles].
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Adam: So my parents are total hippies and I grew up with a big organic vegetable garden in our backyard. My mom was a really adventurous cook, and so I became interested in cooking around age four or five. She encouraged me to cook and we always had real ingredients to use.
a photograph of baby Adam in the kitchen
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With lots of trial and error and from working at various places including a local hippie organic bakery in Washington, I’ve always been really interested in trying to cook using different kinds of ingredients. Partially from being with Hannah, of course, and partially from being in the New York area where there are so many amazing Korean restaurants to try, I began my journey with Korean food about five years ago.
What made you decide to use hand-drawn illustrations to depict Korean food as opposed to taking photographs?
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Hannah: I really felt like our artistic ability is something unique, and I hadn’t seen a ton of illustrations of Korean food, either. We definitely thought there was room for more.
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Adam: Yeah. We both love photography. Most of our drawings are actually drawn with Copic markers and pens from life or the photos we take.
SEE BELOW: Exclusive Behind The Scenes: Step by Step Creation of the adorable Pyogo Beoseot (Shiitake Mushrooms)
Step One: Real Life
Step Two: Take a Picture
Step Three: Hand Drawn Illustration, using tracing board for reference
Step Four: Make Final Touches on Photoshop!
Initially, those who are not familiar with Korean food might shy away from more traditional ingredients such as red pepper paste (gochujang) or dried anchovies (myeolchi). Since launching your project, have you seen any change in responses from your audience?
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Hannah: Among our friends especially, people have started asking more questions such as, “What kind of gochujang should we use for this dish?” or “Can we split a bag of dried anchovies?”.
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Adam: Right. Most of the people we’ve spoken to about our project and interacted with are becoming more deeply interested and more adventurous eaters.
In Ruth Tam’s piece on The Washington Post, she writes that “immigrant food is often treated like discount tourism — a cheap means for foodies to feel worldly without leaving the comfort of their neighborhood — or high-minded fusion — a stylish way for American chefs to use other cultures’ cuisines to reap profit.” How do we ensure that the meaning behind our foods are preserved and do not get lost in the waves of foodie fads?
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Hannah: I’m coming from an emotional and experiential part of my love for the food. I’ve had a very hands-on experience. In the past, I’ve been able to witness what a farm is like where you have to grind your own soy beans on a mill to make your own tofu. Nowadays, in our writing and some of the travel and food journalism that I’ve done, I feel as if the mindset is often, “go to Korea because the food is awesome.” It’s great that people are starting to know and care enough about Korean cuisine, and I think that using the same techniques with different kinds of ingredients to produce new, fresh flavors can be innovative. It just frustrates me when people don’t take the time to simply learn how to, for example, pronounce a dish correctly.
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Adam: For me, I think that cultural appropriation across the board is a huge issue people should pay more careful attention to. Especially when it comes to food, I think it is often overlooked. I would have never undertaken this project if I were not directly collaborating with someone who is more authentically connected to this culture than I am. I’m Jewish and I have been thinking a lot about doing different things around Jewish food, but right now this is where we’re at and we’re very excited. At the end of the day, it’s a giant can of worms, though, but I think that if the meaning and intention underneath is well thought out, respectful, and gives proper credit, it has the potential to connect other people around the world with each other.
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Hannah: Right. What I’ve noticed about pop culture, at least, is that it’s often white people or “bros” who are overly enthusiastic about Korean food. Whenever I saw those kinds of videos, I felt that it wasn’t my experience. If you’ve noticed the people whom we’ve interviewed or featured on our site, it’s often actual Korean people, often women, who are doing really neat work in the field and aren’t getting the spotlight they deserve. You know, I’m not really interested in what Anthony Bourdain has to say about Korean food but I’m interested in learning about the experience my friend had as a chef working with [the Buddhist nun] Jeong Kwan for 10 days in Seoul.
Here’s a difficult one. What is your favorite Korean restaurant in New York, and why?
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Hannah: In Brooklyn, I would go with Insa. Really good quality. They have a wide array of different BBQ options and I would also say that if you’ve never tried sundae, it’s a good place to try it.
Sundae (photo courtesy of Insatiable Munchies)
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Adam: Her Name is Han. It’s super friendly, and all the dishes have really fresh flavors to them. The interior is really nice and the menu is user-friendly. Some of the more fine-dining Korean restaurants in Manhattan don’t come out with banchan (side dishes) sometimes — you just have to order their expensive “Kimchi Trio” or whatever, but I like that Her Name is Han always provides a colorful set of delicious banchan.
Photo courtesy of Her Name is Han
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Hannah: Also, Myung San in Queens. It’s very rustic; they grow some of their own cabbage and herbs.
Photo courtesy of Sung K. from Yelp
If you two could open a restaurant in New York City, what kind of dish would you want to sell?
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Hannah: I feel like our pajeon (Korean-style pancake) is pretty good.
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Adam: When I think about the best restaurants I’ve been to in Korea, they were usually known for one dish, whether that be ganjang gejang (raw crab marinated in soy sauce) or their kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage). I would say ganjang gejang, although I feel as far as seafood sustainability goes, that’s probably not very good. If only we could find some kind of invasive species of crab that we could work with… [chuckles].
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Hannah: I’ve always thought that a makgeolli (Korean rice wine) bar would do well in New York. We recently met this woman, Alice Jun, who has an Instagram called “Hana Makgeolli” and home-brews her own makgeolli. We’ve become fast friends. When I was in Korea, a lot of these makgeolli bars were just beginning to open; there was so much variety with all kinds of delicious anju (dishes eaten with alcohol). I feel like that would be really fun, and we would be good at cooking up anju.
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Have you seen Eat Drink Draw’s latest adorable Korean food postcards? Browse their colorful gallery here. (Pssst!! They’re only a dollar each and made with lots of love!)
Banchan Postcard ($1)
Rice Cooker Postcard ($1)