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KOREAN COOKS ALSO PLACE an emphasis on utilizing and harmonizing the five basic elements of taste in their cooking: salty, sweet, sour, spicy, and bitter. This is also crucial to health, in that these five tastes in harmony can impact our organs and metabolism in positive ways. Traditional medicine often employs these concepts in nursing a person back to health, by prescribing certain foods and herbs that will assist the regeneration of certain organs (sour foods help the liver, it is thought, while bitter foods are good for the heart).
Take basic kimchi as an example. The sweetness and slight bitterness of fresh cabbage is salted to preserve it, usually with the addition of hot chili powder (gochugaru), and left to ferment creating a sour flavor. All five elements of taste are represented in this one dish, and as such, it has surely become the most renowned and ubiquitous Korean culinary creation.
Again, eating is more than simply to consume food out of necessity. Sitting down to a Korean meal is to engage in a sensory experience of all five elemental tastes, in harmony with the concept of yin and yang, with respect to traditional ideals of hospitality, generosity, and community.
